| abstract | - The Monitor was the first in its class, and dozens of Monitor-class ironclads were commissioned by the US fleet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were still effective warships on rivers in the Great War, 55 years after the Monitor was commissioned. (By this point the Confederate States had copied the design, which was commonly known as a "cheesebox on a raft.") In 1943, during the Second Great War, the Confederate military attempted to reintroduce monitors to combat as a way of moving heavy artillery into range of General Irving Morrell's invading army and then withdrawing them after a bombardment. By this point, however, the monitors were found to be obsolete, as they were vulnerable to divebombers.
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