With the exception of the engagement with the Virginia, the Monitor's brief career was uneventful. Shortly after midnight on December 31, 1862, while under tow by the USS Rhode Island to Beaufort, North Carolina, the Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with a loss of sixteen officers and crewmen (Figure 2).

Discovery and Identification of the Wreck

Figure 2. Contemporary illustration of the sinking of the Monitor off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on December 31, 1862 (Harpers Weekly, January 1863).

In 1973, after nearly a year of intensive historical research, an interdisciplinary team of scientists isolated a high-probability area for the Monitor's sinking. A search was carried out

Figure 3. Photographic survey of the
USS Monitor by the R/V Alcoa Seaprobe, 1974 (National Geographic Magazine).

in August 1973 by the Duke University Research Vessel Eastward, utilizing a side-scan sonar and remotely-operated cameras. The survey located twenty-two shipwrecks, one of which proved to be the Monitor. A second expedition in April 1974, partly sponsored by the U.S. Navy and the National Geographic Society, provided detailed photographic documentation from which an assessment of the wreck was made (Figure 3). A photomosaic produced by the Naval Intelligence Division revealed that, with the exception of damage to the stern section and the collapse of the lower hull forward of the midships bulkhead, the wreck was in relatively good condition (See Frontispiece).

Charting a New Course for the Monitor /