among the last men to abandon ship and remained with Bankhead who was the last surviving man to abandon the sinking Monitor. In his official report of Monitor to the Navy Department, Bankhead praised Greene and Stodder for their heroic efforts and wrote, "I would beg leave to call the attention of the Admiral and of the Department of the particularly good conduct of Lieutenant Greene and Acting Master Louis N. Stodder, who remained with me until the last, and by their example did much toward inspiring confidence and obedience on the part of the others." After a frantic rescue effort, Monitor finally foundered and sank approximately southeast off Cape Hatteras with the loss of sixteen men, including four officers, some of whom remained in the turret and went down with the ironclad. Forty-seven men were rescued by the life boats from Rhode Island.Holloway, 2013, pp. 7–8 Bankhead, Greene and Stodder barely managed to get clear of the sinking vessel and survived the ordeal, but suffered from exposure from the icy winter sea. After his initial recovery, Bankhead filed his official report, as did the commanding officers of the Rhode Island, stating officers and men of both Monitor and Rhode Island did everything within their ability to keep Monitor from sinking. The Navy did not find it necessary to commission a board of inquiry to investigate the affair and took no action against Bankhead or any of his officers. Some time later a controversy emerged over why Monitor sank. In the Army and Navy Journal, Ericsson accused the crew of drunkenness during the storm, being consequently unable to prevent the vessel from sinking. Stodder vigorously defended the crew and rebuked Ericsson's characterization of the crew and events and wrote to Pierce that Ericsson "covers up defects by blaming those that are now dead", pointing out that there were a number of unavoidable events and circumstances that led to the ship's sinking, foremost being the overhang between the upper and lower hulls which came loose and partially separated during the storm from slamming into the violent waves. Stodder's account was corroborated by other shipmates. Rediscovery The Navy tested an "underwater locator" in August 1949 by searching an area south of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse for the wreck of Monitor. It found a long object bulky enough to be a shipwreck, in of water that was thought to be Monitor, but powerful