Ironclad oceangoing vessels were already in the process of revolutionizing war at sea when the American Civil War began in 1861. The main navies of the world had been experimenting with steam-powered propulsion and floating batteries for years before the advent of the Confederate casemated ironclad Virginia and the Union turreted ironclad Monitor. The earliest experiments in the use of iron plate to resist the force of cannonballs appear to have been made in France as early as 1810 by a "Monsieur de Montgery," an officer in the French Navy. Montgery proposed covering the sides of Napoleon's ships with several plates of iron of the aggregate thickness of 4 inches, but the French Emperor rejected the idea. Having lost the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar, Napoleon preferred to concentrate on his more successful land campaigns. In 1813, Pennsylvanian-born Robert Fulton designed the first US Navy (USN) vessel to use steam, which may be considered the prototype of the later steam-propelled ironclad. Although called the Demologos ("The word of the people") by its designer, the vessel was officially named the US Steam Battery Fulton.
