USS Monitor crew members on deck, 1862. Crew members of the iron-hulled steamship the USS Monitor, cooking on deck in 1862. This view looks forward from the port quarter, with the port side blower hatch in the foreground, the two smokestacks in the middle distance and the turret beyond. The sailor standing on top of the turret is holding a telescope. There is a cooking stove supported on bricks at left, and an awning placed above the turret. The USS Monitor was an iron-hulled steamship, the first such commissioned as a warship by the US Navy. It was commissioned in 1861 during the US Civil War. It was lost at sea on 31 December 1862. Photographed by James F. Gibson on 9 July 1862, on the James River, Virginia, USA.