armored to protect the bases of the turrets, the funnels and the ventilator ducts in what he termed a breastwork. The ships were conceived as harbor defense ships with little need to leave port. Reed took advantage of the lack of masts and designed the ships with one twin-gun turret at each end of the superstructure, each able to turn and fire in a 270° arc. These ships were described by Admiral George Alexander Ballard as being like "full-armoured knights riding on donkeys, easy to avoid but bad to close with". Reed later developed the design into the , the first ocean-going turret ships without masts, the direct ancestors of the pre-dreadnought battleships and the dreadnoughts. In popular culture The battle between the Monitor and the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia was reenacted using scale models in the 1936 film Hearts in Bondage from Republic Pictures. The battle was also dramatized in the 1991 made-for-television movie Ironclads'', produced by Ted Turner. See also Bibliography of American Civil War naval history Bibliography of early United States naval history List of monitors of the United States Navy List of National Historic Landmarks in North Carolina National Register of Historic Places listings in Dare County, North Carolina Notes References Bibliography 191 pages. 303 pages. 261 pages. 398 pages. 369 pages. 239 pages. 224 pages. 162 pages. 340 pages. 440 pages. 518 pages. 201 pages. 80 pages. 409 pages. 281 pages. 280 pages. 96 pages. 187 pages. 360 pages. 332 pages. 83 pages. 292 pages. Primary sources Further reading 416 pages. . External links The Monitor Center at the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia Battle of Hampton Roads schematic map Seattle Pilot mentioning the depth charging of the Monitor Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA official website The American Civil War Museum US Navy Library on USS Monitor Naval History and Heritage Command: USS Monitor Video of model vibrating-lever engine of USS Monitor Project Cheesebox vol. 1 Project Cheesebox vol. 2 Project Cheesebox vol. 3 American Civil War monitors of the United States Ships built in Brooklyn Dare County, North Carolina Battle of Hampton Roads Shipwrecks of the Carolina coast National Historic Landmarks in North Carolina Monitors of the United States Navy Ironclad warships of the Union Navy Shipwrecks of the American Civil War Maritime incidents in December 1862 Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina 1862 ships Archaeology of