"Land Monitor"
By Albert E. Redstone, August 18, 1862
Watercolor on paper
16 7/8 " x 13 3/8"
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Office
of the Chief of Ordnance
Proposed Military Inventions: Land
Monitor
The Civil War generated many proposals for new
military inventions. Here are drawings of two innovative ideas selected
from hundreds of submissions found in the files of the Office of the Chief
of Ordnance. Albert E. Redstone, an Indiana inventor, sent this design
for a "Land Monitor" to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Redstone
asked for authority to construct one land monitor on the condition
that the War Department would accept it if it proved successful. He claimed
his invention could run into enemy lines firing 5,000 shots in 5 to 10
minutes and said it was impregnable to enemy fire. He also claimed it
required only two men to operate but had the fighting force of a entire
division. This project was not built.