Troy mills provided metal for Civil War ship Monitor
TROY — The Union's Civil War battleship USS Monitor rode low in the water, a dark and menacing slash of metal with sides and decks fortified with tons of half-inch iron plates rolled at two mills in South Troy.
Nobody had ever seen an armored naval vessel like it, more submarine than ship, with just 18 inches of freeboard visible above the waterline and a round gun turret protruding from the deck.
Slack-jawed onlookers called the Monitor a "tin can on a raft."
But the Monitor revolutionized naval warfare in the Civil War, tipped the balance of power for the Union Navy and carried hometown pride for Troy's indefatigable workers who met a brutal deadline as the War Between the States raged....