Duel Between the First Ironclads

One was called "a tin can on a shingle"; the other, "a half-submerged crocodile." Yet, on a March day in 1862 in Hampton Roads, Virginia, after a five-hour duel, the USS. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia(formerly the USS. Merrimack) were to change the course of not only the Civil War but also naval warfare forever.