During the summer of 1862 the Monitor remained in Virginia, plying the waters around Norfolk and Hampton Roads. At one point it sailed up the James River to bombard Confederate positions.
As the Monitor's commander, Lieutenant John Worden, had been wounded during the fight with the CSS Virginia, a new commander, Captain William Nicholson Jeffers was assigned to the ship.
Jeffers was known as a scientifically-minded naval officer, and had written several books on subjects such as naval gunnery and navigation. In this photograph, captured on a glass negative by photographer James F. Gibson in 1862, he relaxes on the deck of the Monitor.
Note the large dent to the right of Jeffers, a result of a cannonball fired by CSS Virginia.
