The Man Who Made the Monitor

<p> Mention Civil War naval confrontations and the <I>Monitor</I> instantly springs to mind. The first of the ironclads, the <I>Monitor</I> not only took part in a major battle, it forever changed the face of naval construction. But who was the man behind the ship? Born in Filipstad, Sweden, in 1803, the brilliant and somewhat eccentric engineer John Ericsson spent his childhood observing his father's work in mining and later learned his engineering skills at the No