I can't remember a time when so much history has been so concentrated in one "Fort" like it is at Fort Monroe in Virginia. This 400 year old army fort was the site of some of the first ever Africans that landed in America as well as a safe haven for enslaved during the American Civil War. Jefferson Davis was imprisoned there, Edgar Allen Poe served there, Robert E. Lee helped build it...the history is endless.

🎥 Video version of this podcast

Referenced videos:

Fort Monroe walkthrough

Casemate Museum video

Walk with History & Talk with History

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Want to have a question featured on our next podcast?⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Leave us a 5 star review and ask us your questions!!

-------------------------------------------------------

This is a Walk With History production

But if someone says like, Hey, you know, tell me an interesting history fact.

And you could say, well, Robert E.

Lee built a prison that held Jefferson Davis that probably would kind of

short circuit for a little bit,

welcome to Talk with History.

, I am your host Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.

Hello.

On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired World travels

YouTube channel journey, and examined history through deeper conversations

with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

Now, as always, before we get into our main topic, if you guys.

Or watching the livestream.

If you're listening, if you're watching the livestream, please

feel free to give us a thumbs up.

Share this, send the link to someone.

And if you're listening to the podcast, drop Us a review on

Spotify or Apple Podcast because the reviews truly help us grow.

And the history channel is slowly pulling away further and further from us.

We're trying to catch 'em millions upon millions of subscribers and followers.

They have 7 million.

No, it's like 11 or 12.

Oh my gosh, . But drop us a review.

We'd appreciate it and it helps the podcast grow.

Now, Jen, why don't you tell us what we are talking about today?

Today we are gonna talk about Fort Monroe.

So, , for those of you who are joining, we had a very big following

for the Lisa Marie Memorial.

So there could be people who are joining from that.

But what we usually do on talk with history is we have a video that comes

out every Wednesday, walk with History video and that video yesterday.

Was Fort Monroe.

Right.

And we've actually done two weeks in a row of Fort Monroe cuz there

was so much for us to cover there.

And I feel like we barely got to

all of it.

Yes.

And so this is a time for us to kind of talk about what

it was like to travel there.

Some of the things you didn't see behind the scenes.

Things about Fort Monroe and then if you watch the videos, if

you have any questions for us.

Right.

And if you see, if you're curious about the thumbnail, right.

You probably clicked on the thumbnail of this video and it's the

Fort Monroe actually is the only, and it's the largest stone fort.

Built in the United States period.

Yes.

Ever.

Yes.

And it's the only active duty fort for a very long time.

Yes.

That had a moat around it.

Yes.

So it's, it's just kind of old school and unique and has a ton of history,

so I'm really excited to get into it.

It is a huge fort.

Even when you go there.

I don't even think you get a real good sense of size, but they show how you could

fit all these other forts inside of it.

Yeah.

From how big that it is.

And it has a, a long history because of the location and where it is in

Hampton, Virginia, in 1609 when the first colonizers were coming to America.

It's just a very strategic location close to Jamestown on that opening of the river

and the the Riverway into Virginia, right?

So it's always been recognized for its strategic location.

and that's why it's just has such a long history and it

makes sense right?

Back then they're sailing up on ships and they're like, Hey, what's the easiest

place for us to land that looks like it could sustain, where we wanna be for

however long it takes us to figure out what this new, exciting land is all about.

And they land there and it actually used to be called old.

Old Point comfort.

Old point comfort.

It's strategic because you could watch to who's using the waterway, right?

Because these rivers take you to DC and to Annapolis, I think Up to Richmond.

Up to Richmond.

So these are all those waterways right there.

So you could basically sit there and kind of monitor everybody

who's coming in and out,

if you kind of picture it in your mind, if you're not familiar

with the kind of Virginia area.

So again, she mentioned it's south of, south of dc it's Southern Virginia.

Like we're

close, almost to the border of

North Carolina.

South of DC.

Not far from Norfolk, but basically almost right there on the borders.

If you picture that in your mind, you can probably picture where it is if

you're not great at geography like me.

Yeah,

and it's not on Norfolk, like it's the land mass across the water from Norfolk.

Basically, you have to cross that bridge that goes underwater to get to it and.

, but it stands alone in it's lone little area, Hampton, Virginia, right there.

And the Ford is still there.

And what's neat that we discovered when we went there

is that people still live on it.

Yeah.

I I wasn't

expecting that.

And you, you can, it's, it's not just military.

Yeah.

Like anybody can live on Fort Monroe and they have the old barracks and

buildings and they look nice and they have that huge, you'll see

in our video, they have a huge.

parade field

it's neat because obviously it's surrounded by a moat, so you, you

do have to drive across the mote.

Yeah.

And so there's the, it's like a little tunnel.

Oh my gosh.

And so we're driving through in our, our S U V and one car, one

car.

It'd be like, oh, you fold in the window.

So you can't imagine, you probably can't get many moving vans in there.

. I, if any, if any, . . Small moving van.

. , I was surprised cuz there was the moat itself or , the fort

itself surrounded by the moat.

But then there's also land around that.

Mm-hmm.

, which there is an old hotel.

Yes.

There's an old hotel there.

That is now it, so it became later after the fort was used it became later

kind of like, vacation destination cuz you're close to Virginia Beach.

Right.

And they built these nice vacation hotels right on the end of Old

Point Comfort because you had a great vantage point right.

Of the waterways in the ocean.

And so the hotel, and when you see it on video, it still has its kind

of art deco grandeur, but it's now like a senior assisted living center.

But it looks pretty

cool.

But to kind of step back a little bit the, the fort started being built obviously

for its location and then where a lot of people start getting interested in, it's

kind of the civil war era type stuff.

So

the fort is named Fort Monroe cuz it's built during the presidency

of President Monroe and it's President Monroe who basically

says we need to build a fort here.

and it comes about, like I said, it's always kind of been a strategic

location and people had recognized its importance on the waterway, but

during the war of 1812, the British had no problems taking over that

area, and they used the lighthouse there actually to their advantage.

They took the lighthouse there and we show the lighthouse in our video

and they used it for their ships.

Yep.

And to, to, to protect as their own, their own lookout.

Yeah.

Their own lookout and to protect what they wanted to do.

And basically their burning of Washington DC and it became, Apparent

that we were very vulnerable, right?

As a nation, we didn't have these forts built up along the Atlantic coast and

here we were in a war with the, with England, and they had no problem getting

to our most strategic point that protects these ma, this major waterway to some

of our major cities on the East coast.

And we had no way to stop them.

Yeah.

So after the war of 1812 was over, they decided let's start to build a fort here.

And this could be one of the reasons.

It's the most, it's the largest fort.

Yeah, it's the most stone fort.

It's massive.

It has the motor around it.

It could be one of those reasons cuz they really wanted to fortify this fort.

One of the very unique things about it is, w who was the engineer of Fort Monroe.

. And saw it through to the end of its completion was Robert E.

Lee.

. And we, we had planned on trying to make a little short, kind of fact about that.

So Robert E.

Lee actually went and was essentially stationed there.

Mm-hmm.

24 years old.

. He was a West Point trained engineer.

He was posted at Fort Monroe and he had just gotten married.

to Mary Custis Lee.

And we talk about that if you watch our Arlington video, cause we go to

Arlington house, which is where he was married, and that was her ancestral home.

So that became his home.

And he was stationed in Fort Monroe.

Yeah.

So she comes down to Fort Monroe with him.

Their first child is born there.

So they're there from 1831 to 1834.

And they're, they live in building 17.

And that building is still there?

Yeah.

On Fort Monroe.

It is now used by the National Park Service.

but this is the beginning of this just very convoluted crossing.

It's, it's, it really is just kind of center point.

For a lot of early American history, especially up through the Civil War.

Yes.

So it's completed in 1834, and then during the Civil War, it's

union held the entire time.

Which is interesting when you think that Virginia is a Confederate state.

Yeah.

And, and you think about the minute that Sumner.

Is basically taken from the union, and Lincoln is made aware

that the the southern states are succeeding from the union.

He fortifies Monroe.

Yeah, because Fort Monroe, like I said, is such a strategic location

to these cities along the East coast, including Washington,

DC Well, and the other thing, if you, and about Fort Monroe, if we

didn't mention it early on, was.

It's one hell of a fort.

Yeah.

There's, there's one way on.

Mm-hmm.

. So it's not like, it's like surrounded by a land.

It's surrounded by water and there's kind of one aisle to get on to, to get on.

So it's not.

Terribly difficult to defend.

And even from the water, you're not gonna be able to really take it from the water.

No.

So it's, it's, it's incredibly strategic

and it have, it's one of the things we show in the videos, it has,

like at the time was probably.

Upwards of more than 50 cannons.

Yeah.

Around the entire fort.

And one of those we showed the Lincoln Yeah.

Cannon, they call it Lincoln Gun.

Lincoln Gun.

Which the projectile is, it's

a, it's a 50,000 pound cannon.

Yeah.

And the projectile is 300 pounds.

So the, the cannon ball,

it's, it's huge.

So if you watch the video, that's, that's what that, that Lincoln gun is.

Yes.

This.

Fort has cannons in every opening, and then they have a huge projectile gun.

So no one was taking this fort, right?

This was the last thing you probably needed before to take

DC or something like that.

So it's never taken . And it was so safe that even Lincoln will visit in 1862.

And start to plan the Battle of Norfolk, which turns out to be

That's the battle of the Ironclads.

That's right.

And we go to the building that Lincoln stays in, which is a,

it's quarters one on Fort Monroe.

And actually Lafayette had visited there in 1824.

Yeah.

Jen was, Jen was pretty excited about that.

So I got to walk out the stairs that both Lafayette and Lincoln.

Yep.

Stayed in, but, so this is like the nice.

Place to stay on the fort.

And so that was a big part of their history, but Lincoln

felt safe enough to go there.

Yeah.

Even when you think that Virginia is a Confederate

state.

Yeah, I guess I, I didn't really think about that too much.

That's pretty interesting.

It's interesting, like

he's taking, it's a lot of like, I think bravery in a lot of ways

where he's like going to places.

So, so inside of, you can drive in, you can see inside of Fort Monroe

and they actually have a, a pretty neat walking tour that if you get

the little basic map, it gives you the numbers, you can walk around.

It's it.

It's not a lot of walking, but it's a decent amount.

Yeah,

and it's interesting, they have a lot of interesting locations on here.

Like I said, the quarter's one where Lincoln planned the Battle

of Norfolk and Lafayette visited, but they have building 17 where.

Lee stayed and they have a chapel of the centurion there, which is

basically, when you think of a fort, it's very all-inclusive.

Yep.

They have to, they people were living there, people living there.

And then if you're gonna cut off the entrance and exit, you keep

your, you know, your living n.

all the provisions inside.

Yeah.

So there's a chapel inside.

Yep.

Inside the fort.

And that chapel of the centurion, which is cool in itself cuz I

think the centurion is cool.

But Eisenhower was there.

Yeah.

When his son was married there, his son got married.

So when he was a general, he visited there and and.

He got to see his son get married there and that chapel is still there

today and they still do services today.

So you could go there on Sundays.

Yeah.

And that's right here in the chat.

Readout Productions.

Yes.

It, it, there was a lot of people there.

There's, I was surprised and I was kind of, I.

Pleasantly surprised, again, not as, not the history buff.

Mm-hmm.

at how much there was there, cuz there was just so much concentrated

history in this one single spot.

They think about it, it's been around for 400 years.

They think every president has visited, maybe not the last couple,

but I know that Obama was there.

He's, he's the one who declared it a national historic

landmark because it was an active duty army fort all the way up until 2011.

So it's only been a little over 10 years that it ha that it hasn't been

an active duty military installation.

Yes.

But Grant was there president Garfield I know was there.

Yeah.

I mean, pretty much every president has.

Stayed there at one point cuz it's so safe.

Yeah.

And it probably in that quarter's one, which is closed to the public right now,

but they're re renovating it right now.

Oh, I know.

To make it open for people.

So that would be very cool when they come

out with all that.

So, yeah.

So you can do this kind of walking tour of Fort Monroe.

Mm-hmm.

, which was really, really neat.

It'll take you around to the Lincoln gun, to the chapel, to the a 400 year old tree.

They actually had a name for this 400 year old tree.

It was pretty cool.

Algermourne.

Oak.

. They take you over to the place where Lafayette stayed and Lincoln stayed.

And then actually one of the first places you can go to is the Casem Mate Museum.

. I wanna really talk about what

see these in a lot of forts and.

Fort McHenry had it.

Any place that's gonna have a lot of like ammunition, so Cannons usually uses

like a casem mate kind of architecture.

Yeah.

And that is a, a dome, it's a, a dome architecture and they use it like an arch.

And it's because it's just a very stable architectural feature.

Yep.

And it can take a lot of weight and it can shift a little so you don't have to worry.

You know where the pressure is going, but one of the great things about

it, if something explodes inside of it, okay, it contains that explode.

It contains the

explosion

so you'll see that a lot in armories.

They had this arch kind of, brick structure or cement structure above them

because it will contain the explosion if there's an internal explosion

inside.

Yeah.

So, so the case Meet museum it's free.

It's free as far as I

know.

Yep.

You have to go over to the visitor center, get your ticket, and

then go to the Casem Mate Museum.

It gives you some history of the fort and then using it as living quarters.

But the coolest

part, the coolest, the coolest part was if you saw our.

Fort Monroe video was that, it was the prison cell of Jefferson Davis.

Yes.

So after they catch Jefferson Davis, he's taken by ship to, you know, old

Point Comfort where the lighthouse is, and he's disembarked from the

ship and taken into Fort Monroe.

Yeah.

And, and, and that video's doing decently for our channel.

And people have some strong opinions about Jefferson Davis.

Sure.

And honestly, I read those strong opinions.

To you because even at the time, he's held there for two years and he's, he's held

there from 9 18 65 to 1867, and people just didn't know what to do with him.

So as you remember, we talk about the end of the Civil War and

Lincoln being assassinated, and then Johnson becomes president and.

. This country has just been at war for four years.

Yeah.

And they've just brought the, the states back into the union.

They really wanna do a lot of like healing and reconciliation,

and they don't want a lot of this animosity and, and it's this long

drawn out public trial.

Yeah.

So they

don't know what to do with him.

Right.

Should we hang him for treason because he is brought up on three charges

and I read those to you in the video.

He's brought up on the assassination of Lincoln.

Yep.

He's brought up for treason and then he's brought up and has mistreatment

of troops or something like that.

Yeah.

Mistreatment of prisons of war.

Yeah.

Which they both did, and he's held there for two years and people

were like, should we hang him?

Should we let him go?

And eventually they let him go, but with.

, they evoke his citizenship.

He's no longer American.

Yeah.

And he doesn't really have much of an issue like working through

the rest of his life in the south.

I mean, he is shunned upon.

Yeah.

And, but he can

write his memoir and even like read out productions mentioned in, in the.

In the chat.

Mm-hmm.

, right?

He's talking about how unhealthy he looked.

Yes.

I showed that one picture of his end of his time there, and

I believe you mentioned in the video that his was his wife.

It was his wife was allowed to stay, allowed to come down because he

actually got pretty sick at one point

in time.

The case mates, once you're in there, if you visit, it's very damp.

Yeah.

It's, it's made of brick and you're on.

The, , the Atlantic coast of the south, so you can imagine the humidity

and just the dampness in the air.

And for when we were in there, there had tons of fans trying to keep out.

Yeah, the humidity e even while we were in there.

But without that, you, I could see, you could get very sick of

moisture, could get into your lungs.

Yeah, I seen the pneumonia being rampant.

So yeah, he, he was very sick towards the end of his life.

So they let him off, they let him go free in 1867.

And then of course he,, after he passes and I tell you that he's

eventually pardoned and I think someone made a point that, although.

Davis is pardoned by President Carter.

Yeah.

He also pardons Lee at the same time.

Oh, that's right.

And I don't know if anybody knows if any other Confederates

were pardoned at that time.

Yeah, that'd be interesting to find out.

I know those two for

sure.

Yeah, so the case museum, aside from just like literally hanging

out in the cell where Jefferson Davis was for two years, which.

, it's, it's one thing to kind of walk around an area where like, yeah, Lincoln

walked over here, he walked up these steps, and then you're, you're sitting

here filming in a, in a cell, whereas like the, the president of the Confederacy.

Lived right here for.

Looked out this window for two years, looked out this

window and like slept on that

bed and had to stare at that American flag, which I thought was great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they, they hang the American flag in his cell.

A big, huge American flag.

35 stars at the time.

But, and that flag is still in that cell.

and you can go there and see it.

Yeah.

The Casem Mate Museum was, was really, really neat.

Mm-hmm.

, they had all sorts of displays on what life was like, if

the officers were living Yes.

They, some of them had their families with them.

Probably just like their wife, not like three kids because it was small quarters.

The museum itself was really neat.

You can walk through, you can see all these different things.

You can see more massive cannons, lots of cannons.

Yeah.

All, all the ar artillery, right?

Mm-hmm.

. And so they were, they kind of show some of the technology back then about how

they manage these cannons and how they would shoot out of these case mates.

Yeah.

So put, keep them on their little track, little tracks, cuz you

know, as a cannon fires it.

Fling back and then the, you know, you're gonna pull it forward again.

And they have all the tools to show you how many people it takes to

fire a cannon and work a cannon.

And then, A lot of these cannons were found in the moat.

Yeah, because this was a working fort, so you don't think they had

all these cannons in these holes while this was a working fort.

Who are they using these cannons for today?

Right, right, right.

So when they were done, they basically threw all the cannons,

just tossed 'em over the

side into the,

into the moat.

And then when this became a national, Historic landmark.

They searched the moat and brought all the cannons back up, refurbished

them and set it up how it would have looked during the Civil War era.

So if you're wondering like what did they just.

Leave these cannons here.

No, this is a working fort.

Yeah.

So it's, it's a working building, you know.

So that was interesting to me.

But I thought Po Poe was there.

Yeah, Edgar Allen Poe before Lee, so Poe was there in 1928

and they have like a little spot and they talked about some of the famous

soldiers that, that that kind of were posted there for a short period of time.

And the

connections with them.

So like Edgar Allen Poe and then Icabod Crane was there.

Yeah.

This is

Icabod Ca Crane.

The original.

The

original, yeah.

Like the actual name Yeah.

That Washington Irving uses.

Yeah, because it's so funny

we keep coming across him.

. Yes.

He was a part of Fort Ma Monroe.

This is how long it has been a, a fort cuz Washington Irving's

like Revolutionary War and.

but Edgar Allen pose is there for a short time.

Yep.

He's there for a couple months, but he's there through the new year

cuz he's there for 1828 to 1829.

Yeah.

So he spends his new year there.

Who knows if he had watch on New Year's Eve.

Yeah.

So one of one, it's funny because one of the things we were gonna try

to turn into like a little short video or something like that was

an interesting fact about Robert E.

Lee that nobody else knows.

Mm-hmm.

and you could say, well, Robert E.

Lee built the.

That held Jefferson Davis.

Exactly.

. Which is, which is kind of ironic, right?

Yeah.

Obviously it's many years later.

Yeah.

And there's, there's lots of history in between that.

But if someone says like, Hey, you know, tell me an interesting history fact.

And you could say, well, Robert E.

Lee built a prison that held Jefferson Davis that probably

would kind of short circuit for a little bit, not understanding that.

And you can tell 'em, well, Robert E.

Lee built it when he was a young lieutenant and, , yes.

Many years later,

and it's so the fort.

has another really big historic impact during the Civil War.

This is the first contrabands come to this fort.

That was interesting.

They used the word contrabands because during the Civil War, when enslaved

would leave their plantations the men would leave to go fight the

war, and they basically had no one there overseeing them anymore.

They would leave.

They could run away, they could try, you know, try to make it north.

And when they first encountered union officers, they weren't

really sure what to do.

Yeah.

Because they weren't sure what to classify them as well.

And,

and because again, Fort Monroe is in.

Virginia of Virginia, and it's so far south, it's probably one of the further

south points that the union controlled.

So when Enslave got away, it was one of the first places they could get to.

Right.

And they ca they came up with this contraband, this is what Lincoln did.

They came up with this contraband idea.

General Butler was there.

And this idea that they are a spoil of war.

Right?

So they are something you can commandeer during war.

And that's, this is starting.

The proclamation.

Yeah.

This is starting the 13th amendment.

This is all precluding that conversation because they're

not quite sure what to do here.

And so when this becomes a contraband camp and you have the first.

people who make it there, it quickly becomes a

huge camp.

Yeah.

Harriet Tubman goes through

there at some point in time.

Harriet Tubman runs the hospital, the contraband hospital there.

Yeah.

So, and schools start there and Freeman schools start there.

And Hampton University, which is a historic black college and university is

where Booker t Washington went to school.

Yeah.

So it is such.

Profound connection to African American history and American history.

So that is Fort Monroe, and I just think that's something everyone needs

to recognize too, about that location.

They also have the marker.

Yep.

Where the first.

Africans came to Virginia.

Yeah,

per, per that statement.

I encourage you to go check out the first Fort Monroe video cuz Jen

kind of breaks down what they were trying to say with that marker.

Although historically it might not be a hundred percent.

Accurate as most

people would read it.

Yes.

So it's a great conversation starter.

Yeah.

And I think that's important to have.

We can't precisely measure when the first anybody were in America, but

we can say when first documented.

Yeah.

And they do use the word documented in that marker as well.

But I even, that's not a hundred percent accurate, but we talk about that as well.

And, and if you ever get a chance, right, again, it's a lot of concentrated

history in one spot, and you can actually walk on top of the fort mm-hmm.

right?

So we actually went and went over to they've taken pieces of it down, but

Jefferson Davis, like Memorial Park.

Yeah.

They, and they.

, it's not even a park, it's like a ramp up to the top of the fort.

But you can walk on top of the fort.

So if you look at pictures of it, you, there's, there's inside the fort, which

is like all the case mates mm-hmm.

there's inside the center of the fort, but then you can actually walk on top of it.

So you can walk around the ramp parts.

The ramp parts.

And from those ramp parts, they said you could see the battle, the ironclads.

Yeah.

. I encourage you guys to check out

do a good job of kind of showing you what's there, but it, it, it

doesn't replace going in person.

No.

If you ever have a chance, it, it's a great way to do an afternoon.

You could spend all day there if you really wanted to.

Yeah.

And it's beautiful and.

So the one video is just outside of the museum, and the second video is just the

Casemaker Museum.

It's just the Capeman Museum.

So Fort Monroe has been around almost as long as there's been explorers landing on

the shores of America for over 400 years.

The strategic Old Point Comfort.

Was the site of enslavement, army encampments, hotel getaways, freedom from

enslavement, army cadet training, and yes, even a prison cell for Jefferson Davis.

This moat surrounded pocket of history has so many stories to tell, and we hope

that one day you too will visit this historic landmark that is Fort Monroe.

So thank you for listening to the Talk with History podcast,

and please reach out to us at our website, talk with history.com.

But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this

podcast or video, please share it with them, especially if you think that

today's topic would interest a friend.

Shoot 'em a text, tell 'em to look up the Talk With History podcast could

because we rely on you, our community to grow, and we appreciate y'all every day.

We'll talk to you next time.