Fort Monroe

A visit to Newport News, Yorktown, and Jamestown, Virginia are important steps in tracing the history of our United States.

In 1607 Captain Christopher Newport searched the land of the Kecoughtan tribe.  His exploration brought English colonists to the New World. They named the area Cape Comfort before moving up the James River to settle at Jamestown.

Captain James Smith, who surveyed the area between 1607 and 1609, believed it to be an ideal place for a fort.

During the War of 1812, British soldiers burned Hampton and occupied the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse.  The British Navy sailed unopposed all the way up the Chesapeake Bay to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, burning Washington, D.C., along the way.

President James Monroe saw the importance of establishing fortifications on the eastern seaboard so that no ships could pass again through and come within range of Washington to burn the city down.

President James Madison hired a French engineer, Brevet Brigadier General Simon Bernard, to design a network of coastal defenses to protect the nation from future attacks.

Initial planning was made in 1817 for Fort Monroe, the largest of these fortifications. The construction for Fort Monroe was decided near the point where the Chesapeake Bay meets Hampton Roads, a natural deep-water channel that made it a critical defense site.

The actual construction of Fort Monroe began in 1819. During the early 1820s, construction required the delivery of 800,000 bricks per month. These bricks were produced within a mile of the fort. Granite was brought from quarries along the Susquehanna River in Maryland. The main fortification was completed in 1834.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, spent time in this casemate May 22- October 2, 1865, as prisoner of war, before he was moved to Carroll Hall in the fortress; he remained there until May 1867 when he was released on bail and never brought to trial.

Brevet Brigadier General Simon Bernard was a member of the French Army’s Engineer Corps and former aide-de-camp to Napoleon. Marquis de Lafayette recommended the general to President James Madison and Gen. Bernard arrived in the U.S. in 1816. President Madison placed Bernard at the head of the Board of Engineers, which was charged with constructing coastal defenses, forts, roads, and canals.

Climbing to the top of the fort gave us a breathtaking view of the Chesapeake Bay. A pet cemetery circled the ramparts which I thought a bit odd.