Episode 49
Civil war fort built by Robert E Lee (a little) | Fort Monroe
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I can't remember a time when so much history has been so concentrated in one "Fort" as 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, and Robert E. Lee helped build it...the history is endless.
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Transcript
But if someone says like, Hey, you know, tell me an interesting history fact.
Speaker:And you could say, well, Robert E.
Speaker:Lee built a prison that held Jefferson Davis that probably would kind of
Speaker:short circuit for a little bit,
Speaker:welcome to Talk with History.
Speaker:, I am your host Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired World travels
Speaker:YouTube channel journey, and examined history through deeper conversations
Speaker:with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.
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Speaker:Now, Jen, why don't you tell us what we are talking about today?
Speaker:Today we are gonna talk about Fort Monroe.
Speaker:So, , for those of you who are joining, we had a very big following
Speaker:for the Lisa Marie Memorial.
Speaker:So there could be people who are joining from that.
Speaker:But what we usually do on talk with history is we have a video that comes
Speaker:out every Wednesday, walk with History video and that video yesterday.
Speaker:Was Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And we've actually done two weeks in a row of Fort Monroe cuz there
Speaker:was so much for us to cover there.
Speaker:And I feel like we barely got to
Speaker:all of it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And so this is a time for us to kind of talk about what
Speaker:it was like to travel there.
Speaker:Some of the things you didn't see behind the scenes.
Speaker:Things about Fort Monroe and then if you watch the videos, if
Speaker:you have any questions for us.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And if you see, if you're curious about the thumbnail, right.
Speaker:You probably clicked on the thumbnail of this video and it's the
Speaker:Fort Monroe actually is the only, and it's the largest stone fort.
Speaker:Built in the United States period.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Ever.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And it's the only active duty fort for a very long time.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That had a moat around it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So it's, it's just kind of old school and unique and has a ton of history,
Speaker:so I'm really excited to get into it.
Speaker:It is a huge fort.
Speaker:Even when you go there.
Speaker:I don't even think you get a real good sense of size, but they show how you could
Speaker:fit all these other forts inside of it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:From how big that it is.
Speaker:And it has a, a long history because of the location and where it is in
Speaker:Hampton, Virginia, in 1609 when the first colonizers were coming to America.
Speaker:It's just a very strategic location close to Jamestown on that opening of the river
Speaker:and the the Riverway into Virginia, right?
Speaker:So it's always been recognized for its strategic location.
Speaker:and that's why it's just has such a long history and it
Speaker:makes sense right?
Speaker:Back then they're sailing up on ships and they're like, Hey, what's the easiest
Speaker:place for us to land that looks like it could sustain, where we wanna be for
Speaker:however long it takes us to figure out what this new, exciting land is all about.
Speaker:And they land there and it actually used to be called old.
Speaker:Old Point comfort.
Speaker:Old point comfort.
Speaker:It's strategic because you could watch to who's using the waterway, right?
Speaker:Because these rivers take you to DC and to Annapolis, I think Up to Richmond.
Speaker:Up to Richmond.
Speaker:So these are all those waterways right there.
Speaker:So you could basically sit there and kind of monitor everybody
Speaker:who's coming in and out,
Speaker:if you kind of picture it in your mind, if you're not familiar
Speaker:with the kind of Virginia area.
Speaker:So again, she mentioned it's south of, south of dc it's Southern Virginia.
Speaker:Like we're
Speaker:close, almost to the border of
Speaker:North Carolina.
Speaker:South of DC.
Speaker:Not far from Norfolk, but basically almost right there on the borders.
Speaker:If you picture that in your mind, you can probably picture where it is if
Speaker:you're not great at geography like me.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:and it's not on Norfolk, like it's the land mass across the water from Norfolk.
Speaker:Basically, you have to cross that bridge that goes underwater to get to it and.
Speaker:, but it stands alone in it's lone little area, Hampton, Virginia, right there.
Speaker:And the Ford is still there.
Speaker:And what's neat that we discovered when we went there
Speaker:is that people still live on it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I I wasn't
Speaker:expecting that.
Speaker:And you, you can, it's, it's not just military.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like anybody can live on Fort Monroe and they have the old barracks and
Speaker:buildings and they look nice and they have that huge, you'll see
Speaker:in our video, they have a huge.
Speaker:parade field
Speaker:it's neat because obviously it's surrounded by a moat, so you, you
Speaker:do have to drive across the mote.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so there's the, it's like a little tunnel.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:And so we're driving through in our, our S U V and one car, one
Speaker:car.
Speaker:It'd be like, oh, you fold in the window.
Speaker:So you can't imagine, you probably can't get many moving vans in there.
Speaker:. I, if any, if any, . . Small moving van.
Speaker:. , I was surprised cuz there was the moat itself or , the fort
Speaker:itself surrounded by the moat.
Speaker:But then there's also land around that.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, which there is an old hotel.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:There's an old hotel there.
Speaker:That is now it, so it became later after the fort was used it became later
Speaker:kind of like, vacation destination cuz you're close to Virginia Beach.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And they built these nice vacation hotels right on the end of Old
Speaker:Point Comfort because you had a great vantage point right.
Speaker:Of the waterways in the ocean.
Speaker:And so the hotel, and when you see it on video, it still has its kind
Speaker:of art deco grandeur, but it's now like a senior assisted living center.
Speaker:But it looks pretty
Speaker:cool.
Speaker:But to kind of step back a little bit the, the fort started being built obviously
Speaker:for its location and then where a lot of people start getting interested in, it's
Speaker:kind of the civil war era type stuff.
Speaker:So
Speaker:the fort is named Fort Monroe cuz it's built during the presidency
Speaker:of President Monroe and it's President Monroe who basically
Speaker:says we need to build a fort here.
Speaker:and it comes about, like I said, it's always kind of been a strategic
Speaker:location and people had recognized its importance on the waterway, but
Speaker:during the war of 1812, the British had no problems taking over that
Speaker:area, and they used the lighthouse there actually to their advantage.
Speaker:They took the lighthouse there and we show the lighthouse in our video
Speaker:and they used it for their ships.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And to, to, to protect as their own, their own lookout.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Their own lookout and to protect what they wanted to do.
Speaker:And basically their burning of Washington DC and it became, Apparent
Speaker:that we were very vulnerable, right?
Speaker:As a nation, we didn't have these forts built up along the Atlantic coast and
Speaker:here we were in a war with the, with England, and they had no problem getting
Speaker:to our most strategic point that protects these ma, this major waterway to some
Speaker:of our major cities on the East coast.
Speaker:And we had no way to stop them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So after the war of 1812 was over, they decided let's start to build a fort here.
Speaker:And this could be one of the reasons.
Speaker:It's the most, it's the largest fort.
Speaker:Yeah, it's the most stone fort.
Speaker:It's massive.
Speaker:It has the motor around it.
Speaker:It could be one of those reasons cuz they really wanted to fortify this fort.
Speaker:One of the very unique things about it is, w who was the engineer of Fort Monroe.
Speaker:. And saw it through to the end of its completion was Robert E.
Speaker:Lee.
Speaker:. And we, we had planned on trying to make a little short, kind of fact about that.
Speaker:So Robert E.
Speaker:Lee actually went and was essentially stationed there.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:24 years old.
Speaker:. He was a West Point trained engineer.
Speaker:He was posted at Fort Monroe and he had just gotten married.
Speaker:to Mary Custis Lee.
Speaker:And we talk about that if you watch our Arlington video, cause we go to
Speaker:Arlington house, which is where he was married, and that was her ancestral home.
Speaker:So that became his home.
Speaker:And he was stationed in Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So she comes down to Fort Monroe with him.
Speaker:Their first child is born there.
Speaker:So they're there from 1831 to 1834.
Speaker:And they're, they live in building 17.
Speaker:And that building is still there?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:On Fort Monroe.
Speaker:It is now used by the National Park Service.
Speaker:but this is the beginning of this just very convoluted crossing.
Speaker:It's, it's, it really is just kind of center point.
Speaker:For a lot of early American history, especially up through the Civil War.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So it's completed in 1834, and then during the Civil War, it's
Speaker:union held the entire time.
Speaker:Which is interesting when you think that Virginia is a Confederate state.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and you think about the minute that Sumner.
Speaker:Is basically taken from the union, and Lincoln is made aware
Speaker:that the the southern states are succeeding from the union.
Speaker:He fortifies Monroe.
Speaker:Yeah, because Fort Monroe, like I said, is such a strategic location
Speaker:to these cities along the East coast, including Washington,
Speaker:DC Well, and the other thing, if you, and about Fort Monroe, if we
Speaker:didn't mention it early on, was.
Speaker:It's one hell of a fort.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's, there's one way on.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So it's not like, it's like surrounded by a land.
Speaker:It's surrounded by water and there's kind of one aisle to get on to, to get on.
Speaker:So it's not.
Speaker:Terribly difficult to defend.
Speaker:And even from the water, you're not gonna be able to really take it from the water.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So it's, it's, it's incredibly strategic
Speaker:and it have, it's one of the things we show in the videos, it has,
Speaker:like at the time was probably.
Speaker:Upwards of more than 50 cannons.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Around the entire fort.
Speaker:And one of those we showed the Lincoln Yeah.
Speaker:Cannon, they call it Lincoln Gun.
Speaker:Lincoln Gun.
Speaker:Which the projectile is, it's
Speaker:a, it's a 50,000 pound cannon.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the projectile is 300 pounds.
Speaker:So the, the cannon ball,
Speaker:it's, it's huge.
Speaker:So if you watch the video, that's, that's what that, that Lincoln gun is.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:This.
Speaker:Fort has cannons in every opening, and then they have a huge projectile gun.
Speaker:So no one was taking this fort, right?
Speaker:This was the last thing you probably needed before to take
Speaker:DC or something like that.
Speaker:So it's never taken . And it was so safe that even Lincoln will visit in 1862.
Speaker:And start to plan the Battle of Norfolk, which turns out to be
Speaker:That's the battle of the Ironclads.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And we go to the building that Lincoln stays in, which is a,
Speaker:it's quarters one on Fort Monroe.
Speaker:And actually Lafayette had visited there in 1824.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Jen was, Jen was pretty excited about that.
Speaker:So I got to walk out the stairs that both Lafayette and Lincoln.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Stayed in, but, so this is like the nice.
Speaker:Place to stay on the fort.
Speaker:And so that was a big part of their history, but Lincoln
Speaker:felt safe enough to go there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Even when you think that Virginia is a Confederate
Speaker:state.
Speaker:Yeah, I guess I, I didn't really think about that too much.
Speaker:That's pretty interesting.
Speaker:It's interesting, like
Speaker:he's taking, it's a lot of like, I think bravery in a lot of ways
Speaker:where he's like going to places.
Speaker:So, so inside of, you can drive in, you can see inside of Fort Monroe
Speaker:and they actually have a, a pretty neat walking tour that if you get
Speaker:the little basic map, it gives you the numbers, you can walk around.
Speaker:It's it.
Speaker:It's not a lot of walking, but it's a decent amount.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:and it's interesting, they have a lot of interesting locations on here.
Speaker:Like I said, the quarter's one where Lincoln planned the Battle
Speaker:of Norfolk and Lafayette visited, but they have building 17 where.
Speaker:Lee stayed and they have a chapel of the centurion there, which is
Speaker:basically, when you think of a fort, it's very all-inclusive.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:They have to, they people were living there, people living there.
Speaker:And then if you're gonna cut off the entrance and exit, you keep
Speaker:your, you know, your living n.
Speaker:all the provisions inside.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So there's a chapel inside.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Inside the fort.
Speaker:And that chapel of the centurion, which is cool in itself cuz I
Speaker:think the centurion is cool.
Speaker:But Eisenhower was there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When his son was married there, his son got married.
Speaker:So when he was a general, he visited there and and.
Speaker:He got to see his son get married there and that chapel is still there
Speaker:today and they still do services today.
Speaker:So you could go there on Sundays.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's right here in the chat.
Speaker:Readout Productions.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It, it, there was a lot of people there.
Speaker:There's, I was surprised and I was kind of, I.
Speaker:Pleasantly surprised, again, not as, not the history buff.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:at how much there was there, cuz there was just so much concentrated
Speaker:history in this one single spot.
Speaker:They think about it, it's been around for 400 years.
Speaker:They think every president has visited, maybe not the last couple,
Speaker:but I know that Obama was there.
Speaker:He's, he's the one who declared it a national historic
Speaker:landmark because it was an active duty army fort all the way up until 2011.
Speaker:So it's only been a little over 10 years that it ha that it hasn't been
Speaker:an active duty military installation.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But Grant was there president Garfield I know was there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, pretty much every president has.
Speaker:Stayed there at one point cuz it's so safe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it probably in that quarter's one, which is closed to the public right now,
Speaker:but they're re renovating it right now.
Speaker:Oh, I know.
Speaker:To make it open for people.
Speaker:So that would be very cool when they come
Speaker:out with all that.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:So you can do this kind of walking tour of Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, which was really, really neat.
Speaker:It'll take you around to the Lincoln gun, to the chapel, to the a 400 year old tree.
Speaker:They actually had a name for this 400 year old tree.
Speaker:It was pretty cool.
Speaker:Algermourne.
Speaker:Oak.
Speaker:. They take you over to the place where Lafayette stayed and Lincoln stayed.
Speaker:And then actually one of the first places you can go to is the Casem Mate Museum.
Speaker:. I wanna really talk about what
Speaker:see these in a lot of forts and.
Speaker:Fort McHenry had it.
Speaker:Any place that's gonna have a lot of like ammunition, so Cannons usually uses
Speaker:like a casem mate kind of architecture.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that is a, a dome, it's a, a dome architecture and they use it like an arch.
Speaker:And it's because it's just a very stable architectural feature.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And it can take a lot of weight and it can shift a little so you don't have to worry.
Speaker:You know where the pressure is going, but one of the great things about
Speaker:it, if something explodes inside of it, okay, it contains that explode.
Speaker:It contains the
Speaker:explosion
Speaker:so you'll see that a lot in armories.
Speaker:They had this arch kind of, brick structure or cement structure above them
Speaker:because it will contain the explosion if there's an internal explosion
Speaker:inside.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, so the case Meet museum it's free.
Speaker:It's free as far as I
Speaker:know.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:You have to go over to the visitor center, get your ticket, and
Speaker:then go to the Casem Mate Museum.
Speaker:It gives you some history of the fort and then using it as living quarters.
Speaker:But the coolest
Speaker:part, the coolest, the coolest part was if you saw our.
Speaker:Fort Monroe video was that, it was the prison cell of Jefferson Davis.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So after they catch Jefferson Davis, he's taken by ship to, you know, old
Speaker:Point Comfort where the lighthouse is, and he's disembarked from the
Speaker:ship and taken into Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and, and that video's doing decently for our channel.
Speaker:And people have some strong opinions about Jefferson Davis.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And honestly, I read those strong opinions.
Speaker:To you because even at the time, he's held there for two years and he's, he's held
Speaker:there from 9 18 65 to 1867, and people just didn't know what to do with him.
Speaker:So as you remember, we talk about the end of the Civil War and
Speaker:Lincoln being assassinated, and then Johnson becomes president and.
Speaker:. This country has just been at war for four years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they've just brought the, the states back into the union.
Speaker:They really wanna do a lot of like healing and reconciliation,
Speaker:and they don't want a lot of this animosity and, and it's this long
Speaker:drawn out public trial.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So they
Speaker:don't know what to do with him.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Should we hang him for treason because he is brought up on three charges
Speaker:and I read those to you in the video.
Speaker:He's brought up on the assassination of Lincoln.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:He's brought up for treason and then he's brought up and has mistreatment
Speaker:of troops or something like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mistreatment of prisons of war.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which they both did, and he's held there for two years and people
Speaker:were like, should we hang him?
Speaker:Should we let him go?
Speaker:And eventually they let him go, but with.
Speaker:, they evoke his citizenship.
Speaker:He's no longer American.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he doesn't really have much of an issue like working through
Speaker:the rest of his life in the south.
Speaker:I mean, he is shunned upon.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, but he can
Speaker:write his memoir and even like read out productions mentioned in, in the.
Speaker:In the chat.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, right?
Speaker:He's talking about how unhealthy he looked.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I showed that one picture of his end of his time there, and
Speaker:I believe you mentioned in the video that his was his wife.
Speaker:It was his wife was allowed to stay, allowed to come down because he
Speaker:actually got pretty sick at one point
Speaker:in time.
Speaker:The case mates, once you're in there, if you visit, it's very damp.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's, it's made of brick and you're on.
Speaker:The, , the Atlantic coast of the south, so you can imagine the humidity
Speaker:and just the dampness in the air.
Speaker:And for when we were in there, there had tons of fans trying to keep out.
Speaker:Yeah, the humidity e even while we were in there.
Speaker:But without that, you, I could see, you could get very sick of
Speaker:moisture, could get into your lungs.
Speaker:Yeah, I seen the pneumonia being rampant.
Speaker:So yeah, he, he was very sick towards the end of his life.
Speaker:So they let him off, they let him go free in 1867.
Speaker:And then of course he,, after he passes and I tell you that he's
Speaker:eventually pardoned and I think someone made a point that, although.
Speaker:Davis is pardoned by President Carter.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He also pardons Lee at the same time.
Speaker:Oh, that's right.
Speaker:And I don't know if anybody knows if any other Confederates
Speaker:were pardoned at that time.
Speaker:Yeah, that'd be interesting to find out.
Speaker:I know those two for
Speaker:sure.
Speaker:Yeah, so the case museum, aside from just like literally hanging
Speaker:out in the cell where Jefferson Davis was for two years, which.
Speaker:, it's, it's one thing to kind of walk around an area where like, yeah, Lincoln
Speaker:walked over here, he walked up these steps, and then you're, you're sitting
Speaker:here filming in a, in a cell, whereas like the, the president of the Confederacy.
Speaker:Lived right here for.
Speaker:Looked out this window for two years, looked out this
Speaker:window and like slept on that
Speaker:bed and had to stare at that American flag, which I thought was great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So they, they hang the American flag in his cell.
Speaker:A big, huge American flag.
Speaker:35 stars at the time.
Speaker:But, and that flag is still in that cell.
Speaker:and you can go there and see it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The Casem Mate Museum was, was really, really neat.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, they had all sorts of displays on what life was like, if
Speaker:the officers were living Yes.
Speaker:They, some of them had their families with them.
Speaker:Probably just like their wife, not like three kids because it was small quarters.
Speaker:The museum itself was really neat.
Speaker:You can walk through, you can see all these different things.
Speaker:You can see more massive cannons, lots of cannons.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:All, all the ar artillery, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And so they were, they kind of show some of the technology back then about how
Speaker:they manage these cannons and how they would shoot out of these case mates.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So put, keep them on their little track, little tracks, cuz you
Speaker:know, as a cannon fires it.
Speaker:Fling back and then the, you know, you're gonna pull it forward again.
Speaker:And they have all the tools to show you how many people it takes to
Speaker:fire a cannon and work a cannon.
Speaker:And then, A lot of these cannons were found in the moat.
Speaker:Yeah, because this was a working fort, so you don't think they had
Speaker:all these cannons in these holes while this was a working fort.
Speaker:Who are they using these cannons for today?
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:So when they were done, they basically threw all the cannons,
Speaker:just tossed 'em over the
Speaker:side into the,
Speaker:into the moat.
Speaker:And then when this became a national, Historic landmark.
Speaker:They searched the moat and brought all the cannons back up, refurbished
Speaker:them and set it up how it would have looked during the Civil War era.
Speaker:So if you're wondering like what did they just.
Speaker:Leave these cannons here.
Speaker:No, this is a working fort.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's, it's a working building, you know.
Speaker:So that was interesting to me.
Speaker:But I thought Po Poe was there.
Speaker:Yeah, Edgar Allen Poe before Lee, so Poe was there in 1928
Speaker:and they have like a little spot and they talked about some of the famous
Speaker:soldiers that, that that kind of were posted there for a short period of time.
Speaker:And the
Speaker:connections with them.
Speaker:So like Edgar Allen Poe and then Icabod Crane was there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This is
Speaker:Icabod Ca Crane.
Speaker:The original.
Speaker:The
Speaker:original, yeah.
Speaker:Like the actual name Yeah.
Speaker:That Washington Irving uses.
Speaker:Yeah, because it's so funny
Speaker:we keep coming across him.
Speaker:. Yes.
Speaker:He was a part of Fort Ma Monroe.
Speaker:This is how long it has been a, a fort cuz Washington Irving's
Speaker:like Revolutionary War and.
Speaker:but Edgar Allen pose is there for a short time.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:He's there for a couple months, but he's there through the new year
Speaker:cuz he's there for 1828 to 1829.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So he spends his new year there.
Speaker:Who knows if he had watch on New Year's Eve.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So one of one, it's funny because one of the things we were gonna try
Speaker:to turn into like a little short video or something like that was
Speaker:an interesting fact about Robert E.
Speaker:Lee that nobody else knows.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and you could say, well, Robert E.
Speaker:Lee built the.
Speaker:That held Jefferson Davis.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:. Which is, which is kind of ironic, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Obviously it's many years later.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And there's, there's lots of history in between that.
Speaker:But if someone says like, Hey, you know, tell me an interesting history fact.
Speaker:And you could say, well, Robert E.
Speaker:Lee built a prison that held Jefferson Davis that probably
Speaker:would kind of short circuit for a little bit, not understanding that.
Speaker:And you can tell 'em, well, Robert E.
Speaker:Lee built it when he was a young lieutenant and, , yes.
Speaker:Many years later,
Speaker:and it's so the fort.
Speaker:has another really big historic impact during the Civil War.
Speaker:This is the first contrabands come to this fort.
Speaker:That was interesting.
Speaker:They used the word contrabands because during the Civil War, when enslaved
Speaker:would leave their plantations the men would leave to go fight the
Speaker:war, and they basically had no one there overseeing them anymore.
Speaker:They would leave.
Speaker:They could run away, they could try, you know, try to make it north.
Speaker:And when they first encountered union officers, they weren't
Speaker:really sure what to do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because they weren't sure what to classify them as well.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:and because again, Fort Monroe is in.
Speaker:Virginia of Virginia, and it's so far south, it's probably one of the further
Speaker:south points that the union controlled.
Speaker:So when Enslave got away, it was one of the first places they could get to.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And they ca they came up with this contraband, this is what Lincoln did.
Speaker:They came up with this contraband idea.
Speaker:General Butler was there.
Speaker:And this idea that they are a spoil of war.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So they are something you can commandeer during war.
Speaker:And that's, this is starting.
Speaker:The proclamation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This is starting the 13th amendment.
Speaker:This is all precluding that conversation because they're
Speaker:not quite sure what to do here.
Speaker:And so when this becomes a contraband camp and you have the first.
Speaker:people who make it there, it quickly becomes a
Speaker:huge camp.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Harriet Tubman goes through
Speaker:there at some point in time.
Speaker:Harriet Tubman runs the hospital, the contraband hospital there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, and schools start there and Freeman schools start there.
Speaker:And Hampton University, which is a historic black college and university is
Speaker:where Booker t Washington went to school.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it is such.
Speaker:Profound connection to African American history and American history.
Speaker:So that is Fort Monroe, and I just think that's something everyone needs
Speaker:to recognize too, about that location.
Speaker:They also have the marker.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Where the first.
Speaker:Africans came to Virginia.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:per, per that statement.
Speaker:I encourage you to go check out the first Fort Monroe video cuz Jen
Speaker:kind of breaks down what they were trying to say with that marker.
Speaker:Although historically it might not be a hundred percent.
Speaker:Accurate as most
Speaker:people would read it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So it's a great conversation starter.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that's important to have.
Speaker:We can't precisely measure when the first anybody were in America, but
Speaker:we can say when first documented.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they do use the word documented in that marker as well.
Speaker:But I even, that's not a hundred percent accurate, but we talk about that as well.
Speaker:And, and if you ever get a chance, right, again, it's a lot of concentrated
Speaker:history in one spot, and you can actually walk on top of the fort mm-hmm.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:So we actually went and went over to they've taken pieces of it down, but
Speaker:Jefferson Davis, like Memorial Park.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They, and they.
Speaker:, it's not even a park, it's like a ramp up to the top of the fort.
Speaker:But you can walk on top of the fort.
Speaker:So if you look at pictures of it, you, there's, there's inside the fort, which
Speaker:is like all the case mates mm-hmm.
Speaker:there's inside the center of the fort, but then you can actually walk on top of it.
Speaker:So you can walk around the ramp parts.
Speaker:The ramp parts.
Speaker:And from those ramp parts, they said you could see the battle, the ironclads.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:. I encourage you guys to check out
Speaker:do a good job of kind of showing you what's there, but it, it, it
Speaker:doesn't replace going in person.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:If you ever have a chance, it, it's a great way to do an afternoon.
Speaker:You could spend all day there if you really wanted to.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's beautiful and.
Speaker:So the one video is just outside of the museum, and the second video is just the
Speaker:Casemaker Museum.
Speaker:It's just the Capeman Museum.
Speaker:So Fort Monroe has been around almost as long as there's been explorers landing on
Speaker:the shores of America for over 400 years.
Speaker:The strategic Old Point Comfort.
Speaker:Was the site of enslavement, army encampments, hotel getaways, freedom from
Speaker:enslavement, army cadet training, and yes, even a prison cell for Jefferson Davis.
Speaker:This moat surrounded pocket of history has so many stories to tell, and we hope
Speaker:that one day you too will visit this historic landmark that is Fort Monroe.
Speaker:So thank you for listening to the Talk with History podcast,
Speaker:and please reach out to us at our website, talk with history.com.
Speaker:But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this
Speaker:podcast or video, please share it with them, especially if you think that
Speaker:today's topic would interest a friend.
Speaker:Shoot 'em a text, tell 'em to look up the Talk With History podcast could
Speaker:because we rely on you, our community to grow, and we appreciate y'all every day.
Speaker:We'll talk to you next time.
