High-tech talent: Savannah College of Art and Design students bring wow factor to story of USS Montauk, other monitors at Fort McAllister

Renderings of the USS Montauk, tent, cabin base, home and cannon (Courtesy of SCAD)

A couple years back, Greg Johnson and his family traveled just south of Savannah, Ga., to visit Fort McAllister State Park home to well-preserved Confederate earthworks that withstood naval bombardments before the post fell to a Federal land attack in late 1864.

Johnson, interactive design and game development professor at the renowned Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), struck up a conversation with interpretive ranger Michael Ellis.

Ellis had a vision for an enhanced museum exhibit dedicated to the Rebel raider CSS Nasvhille (Rattlesnake), which was destroyed by the Union Passaic-class monitor USS Montauk near the fort. Ellis hoped for wall panels about the monitors, a model of the Montauk and a film about the day it encountered the famed Rattlesnake, causing a fire and massive explosion.

Greg Johnson

But money was tight, and there was a question about who could provide the technology and do the work.

An idea was born during the chat.

Johnson pitched it to his bosses at SCAD as a way for students to get real-world experience. SCAD students study all forms of graphic design, gaming and other technology. Administrators signed on – and donated thousands of dollars -- and Johnson and his students got to work.

The efforts are about to pay off in the park’s museum, with the interpretive panels and 3D model of the Montauk expected to debut this spring or summer, followed by the movie, likely next year.

Visitors will encounter compelling information on the innovative monitors and the students will take skills gleaned from this and other projects to the workforce.

“It is a real production opportunity. Students often work on their own projects and group projects,” Johnson told the Picket during a phone call involving him and student Rachel Langley. “It is another level to take student work and turn it into a professional production.”

Rendering of the CSS Nashville/Rattlesnake (Courtesy of SCAD)

Students in a SCAD class developed a script, graphic images and models for the film, which at first they hoped would have a gaming-type style.

“This serves as a real world example and using this for a very different, purpose -- for education. You can work for a museum. Not just for games,” said the professor.

Judd Smith, a Georgia parks historian who is overseeing the project, said it’s an opportunity to tell the story of these ironclads.

“A lot of people think about the Monitor and the Merrimack,” he said. “This is an opportunity to bring that story to Georgia, because these ships were there, part of the blockading squadron.”

Research, research, research

Langley, who took a leadership role in the early 2021 class, grew up in the town of Richmond Hill, home to Fort McAllister. “The project is very near and dear to my heart,” she told the Picket.

The USS Montauk receives fire from Fort McAllister as it pounds the Nashville

Among the first tasks was launching intensive research on the USS Montauk and other Passaic-class monitors that saw action at Fort McAllister and later in the Charleston, S.C., area.

Park staff and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources assisted and have provided oversight on all aspects.

The class took place in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, so many meetings were on Zoom. Students met three or four times at the fort, consulting with staff and doing research. “We went out one time for a cannon firing to record audio,” Langley said.

Johnson went to archive.org and dug up official histories of the Civil War. “We scoured the internet for every image of the Montauk.”

While the monitors were mass-produced, they did undergo changes during the service, and the class wanted to be sure the appearance of the Montauk matched the time it prowled off Fort McAllister.

"The Montauk had gone through a lot of changes by the time it had the battle with the Nashville,” said Langley (above).

The park has blueprints of the Montauk and Johnson used a special camera rig to take photographs of the large sheets to help in modeling the craft.

Greg Johnson used a special rig to take photos of giant blueprints (Courtesy of SCAD)

They produced a graphic of the Rattlesnake for the movie, but there were no known photos or blueprints to work from. Students studied a 3-foot wooden model in the museum and reached out to experts and online resources.

Langley pored over the Montauk’s ship’s log, which included some descriptions of the Confederate raider.

Ships, fort pounded away

Before we get into what the SCAD students are producing, first a little more background on the single-turret USS Montauk and the CSS Nashville.

The Union navy, as it continued its chokehold on Southern ports and readied for offensive operations, sent the Montauk and sister monitors Passaic, Patapsco and Nahant, supported by gunboats Seneca, Dawn and Wissahickon to bombard and capture Fort McAllister in January 1863.

Consider it a trial run of sorts for the armored vessels, which effectively brought to an end the day of the wooden fighting ship.

The skipper of the Montauk was John Worden (left), famous for being the USS Monitor’s captain when it clashed with the CSS Virginia in 1862.

Capable Confederate gunners at Fort McAllister hit the ironclad 13 times in its first action, but caused little damage. A second attack on Feb. 1 found the vessel, according to histories, pounded by 48 shells. The Montauk's sister ships also took part in the action.

Its big day came on February 28, 1863. The sidewheeler CSS Nashville, which was bottled up and hiding under the guns of Fort McAllister for protection, tried to get away from the Federal ironclads via Seven-Mile Bend on the Ogeechee River, said Smith.

"The Ogeechee River is a tidal river, with lots of sand bars,” he said. “It ran aground just past the fort.”

The 215-foot ship commanded by Lt. Thomas Harrison Baker became a sitting duck.

“During the February 28, 1863 attack, Montauk’s XV- and 11-inch Dahlgrens were able to destroy the former commerce raider CSS Nashville. Worden was pleased with his destruction of ‘this troublesome pest’” wrote John V. Quarstein, director emeritus of the USS Monitor Center in a blog post.

“However, Montauk suffered a huge jolt when it struck a Confederate torpedo en route down the Ogeechee River. Worden’s quick thinking saved his ironclad and he, the hero of USS Monitor,  received even greater laurels for his newest decisive actions.”

Limitations of the monitors

The Union naval attacks on Fort McAllister were less successful. The low-profile earthen fort could withstand the shelling and repairs could be readily made. This proved to be the case when the monitors later challenged Confederate fortifications in the Carolinas.

Earthen fortifications were a plus for fort defenders (Georgia DNR)

After the USS Montauk returned to Port Royal, S.C., Worden advised Adm. Samuel Du Pont that that monitors’ rate of fire was too slow and that shells could do little against earthen forts, according to Quarstein.

“While monitors had adequate armor to protect themselves, Worden noted that these warships had several weak points, such as an exposed pilothouse and the unprotected link between the turret and deck that could be jammed by solid shot. He also reported that monitors were vulnerable to Confederate torpedoes as their hulls had only one-inch boilerplate. While Worden had not destroyed Fort McAllister or the railroad bridge over the Big Ogeechee, he was able to destroy the CSS Nashville, adding luster to this outstanding leader’s already impressive legacy.”

USS Montauk (left) and USS Lehigh in Philadelphia, about 1902 (Wikipedia)

The Federal Navy made some improvements to the monitors to shield them from plunging, or arc, fire. They remained targets of Confederate snipers who tried to shoot through openings in the armor.

(Interestingly, the Montauk was a temporary prison for accused Lincoln assassination conspirators in 1865 and the body of John Wilkes Booth was examined there.)

While the Montauk was scrapped in the early 1900s, Fort McAllister State Park’s grounds and museum have a large number of CSS Nashville artifacts and facsimiles, said Ellis, who now works at Fort King Georgia State Historic Site in Darien, Ga.

A pavilion houses several pieces of the engine (above) and the interior collection includes part of a cannon, ship fixtures, fittings, cargo tag, personal items and much more.

The wall panels: Telling the story

The five new wall panels in the museum will cover these topics: Civil War monitors, the Passaic class of monitors, armament, ironclads versus an earthen fort, and what happened to the USS Montauk and he others at Fort McAllister after the fighting.

SCAD students wrote the initial text and they were reviewed by park staff and Smith and others.

“It was back and forth and back and forth several times,” said Adams, adding the class made sure the style was current for the museum and that the information was neutral and appealed to a broad audience.

The 3 feet by 5 feet panels -- which feature photographs, paintings and drawings -- are being printed this month Savannah and the park staff will install them. (Detail of one panel, at right, courtesy of Georgia DNR)

“The quality of the panels (is) above and beyond,” said Ellis.

The model: Born from a 3D printer

The SCAD class used a variety of programs, including Adobe Illustrator, Maya and Unreal Engine, for the Fort McAllister project. Raw images were put through Illustrator.

For the model and other graphics for the film, the team needed to convert files from pixel based to mathematical vector-based images. Once a 2D image file was created, another student worked on the 3D model from those images, according to Johnson and Langley.

“It turned into a much more extensive project than we estimated at first,” Johnson said. “It looks great.”

One of several computer-generated Montauk renderings (Courtesy of SCAD)

The rendering of the Montauk has to be high resolution for the printable model but a lower resolution for a game-style application. “A game can’t handle the level of detail that a 3D printer can handle,” Johnson said.

The 3D printer will produce a couple dozen pieces that must be glued and painted using Adobe Substance 3D Painter. Each of the navy monitors had a slightly different paint job.

"The Montauk model is in the process of being adapted for 3D printing and should be ready by the end of the month," Langley said. "I’m super excited to get to paint this beautiful model."

The state is paying for a case for the 3D model so that it can be next to the CSS Nashville model. The USS Montauk will be about 3 feet long, a tad shorter than that of the Nashville.

The film: Maybe more like Ken Burns 

Cue up images of artillery pieces and a cannon ball. One bell sounds, 2 bells sound, three bells and then narration to a bird’s-eye views of the Confederate blockade runner.

“The year is 1863. It’s a cool February morning, the 28^th. The CSS Nashville, a war-forged Confederate ship, had been refitted and renamed to run the powerful Union blockade stretching down the Georgia coast and over the Ogeechee River.”

Lifeboat rendering for movie (Courtesy of SCAD)

So begins the SCAD script to the planned five-minute film at Fort McAllister. It covers the action and destruction of the Nashville, with music fading out.

Langley said the class created the script, story board and an animation animatic that depicts every scene. “It is a very first rough draft of what eventually will be produced,” said Johnson.

While the original hope was to do a video-game look inside the Unreal Engine program, reality soon set in. The students were way too ambitious.

One class was not near enough to accomplish such a large task and several of the 15 or so students graduated or had to take other classes.

The team might adapt the Ken Burns style instead, using some of the graphic features that were produced, such as the cannons, a house, tent and the Rattlesnake. Another class or two will be needed to finish the film, which could turn out more documentary than video game.

“Movie work has not resumed yet, but we are hoping for it to resume next year with a new class of students and a proper production schedule to help them fulfill their goal," Langley said this week.

Model of CSS Nashville at the museum (Fort McAllister State Historic Park)

Burns’ documentaries are known for the presentation of high-resolution photos, with the camera moving over the photos -- creating motion from static images. “We are changing the graphics a little bit. Rather than one year, it can be done in one quarter,” said Johnson, adding there will be voices in the presentation.

“It will still look extremely good,” with live action and digital effects.

“It is going to look really slick, the closest thing you can get to building a monitor and a Confederate ship blasting themselves to smithereens,” added Johnson.

Park manager Jason Carter told the Picket that he is happy with the film being more of a movie or documentary, given game technology changes so fast. He is pleased that it will include 3D images and other CGI (computer generated imagery).

“It is using technology we did not have 20 years ago,” Smith said.

Weehawken, Montauk and Passaic fire on Fort Moultrie in Sept. 1863 (Wikipedia)