The destructive ironclad ships of the U.S. Civil War in rare photographs, 1861-1864

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For thousands of years, warships were built of wood and powered by human muscles and the wind. Gunpowder carved the first niche for chemical energy and machine-made materials, but successfully mounting and using cannons aboard ships still required vast amounts of time and muscle power. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, naval warfare changed dramatically and […]