Topics and Titles

After visiting the Monitor, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that 'all the pomp and splendor of naval warfare are gone by.' To him, the Monitor signaled a sea change that would breed 'a race of enginemen and smoke-blackened cannoneers, who will hammer away at their enemies under the direction of a single pair of eyes.' Saddest of all, Hawthorne felt, was that 'heroism... will become a quality of very minor importance.'