author
Eugene Winslow Watson
1843–1914
Remembered as a U.S. Navy rear admiral as well as a writer, he brought firsthand experience to one of the most famous naval battles of the American Civil War. His surviving work offers a direct, personal link to the era of the Monitor and the Merrimac.
1 Audiobook
The Monitor and the Merrimac : Both sides of the story
by John Lorimer Worden, Samuel Dana Greene, H. Ashton Ramsay, Eugene Winslow Watson
About the author
Born in 1843 and later rising to the rank of rear admiral, Eugene Winslow Watson served in the United States Navy during a period of enormous change in naval warfare. Records connected with his career place him in the Civil War era and link him to the story of the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac.
Watson is best known to readers as one of the contributors to The Monitor and the Merrimac: Both Sides of the Story (1912). In that volume, he wrote about the loss of the Monitor, drawing on his own experience as an eyewitness to the ship's final hours while serving on the Rhode Island, which was towing her.
That combination of naval service and personal testimony gives his writing its appeal today. Rather than offering distant history, Watson's work brings readers close to the people, ships, and sudden technological changes that shaped Civil War naval combat.