Fort Monroe: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:30, 26 October 2010

Fort Monroe (1819-Active) - Designed as the first Third System Fort by Brig. Gen. Simon Bernard and officially named for President James Monroe in 1832. Construction on Fort Monroe began in 1819 and was completed in 1834. First known as Fortress Monroe. Active Army installation.

tFort Monroe Garrison Headquarters	Fort Monroe BOQ
Fort Monroe Outer Wall, Bastion and Moat
Fort Monroe Quarters #1, visited by Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War

History of Fort Monroe

Part of the Harbor Defense of Chesapeake Bay.

The first fortification built on this site was Fort Algernourne built in 1609 by Captain John Smiths settlers. Other fortifications were built here during the colonial period but did not last. After the war of 1812 it was decided that a system of coastal defenses were needed and Fort Monroe was the first of the Third System forts to be built.

Fort Monroe was built as a seven front, brick and masonry, fort with 10' thick walls and a surrounding 8' deep wet moat. It was first designed by General Simon Bernard for 380 guns, later expanded to a 412 gun capacity, but was never fully armed. The fort was planned for a peacetime garrison of 600 men and a wartime garrison of 2,625 men. The post expanded to cover most of the land at old point comfort and much of the existing post lies outside the walls of the old stone fortress.

Fort Monroe was first garrisoned 25 Jul 1823 by Company G, 3rd U.S. Artillery and by 1825 the garrison was the largest in the United States. In 1824 it became the first U.S. Army "Artillery School of Practice".

U.S. Civil War

During the U.S. Civil War Fort Monroe was one of the few forts in the south that remained in Union hands for the duration. It proved to be a major factor in the war by limiting the significance of the naval yard at Norfolk and by serving as a staging point for attacks on Richmond. President Lincoln visited the fort in 1862 during the planning for the attack on Norfolk.

Endicott Period

The Endicott Period saw the addition of 12 detached rifled gun and mortar batteries ranging from 3" guns to 12" guns and mortars. These batteries were stretched along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay side of Old Point Comfort. Three gun batteries were built into the walls of the old stone fort. All the batteries were started between 1896 and 1902 but they were not all completed until 1915.

Fort Monroe infrastructure expanded between 1906 and 1912 to meet the increased manpower needs of the new gun batteries and the need to train coast artillery officers for all of the new Endicott Period forts and gun batteries around the country.

**Fort Monroe Endicott Period Battery** (edit list)
Battery Click on Battery links below	No.	Caliber	Type Mount	Service Years	Battery Cost	Notes
Battery Anderson	8	12"	Mortar	1896-1898-1898-1943	$ 48,670	4 mortars removed 1917-1918
Battery Ruggles	8	12"	Mortar	1896-1898-1898-1943	$ 48,670	4 mortars removed 1917-1918
Battery De Russy	3	12"	Disappearing	1898-1903-1904-1944	$ 142,348
Battery Parrott (1)	2	12"	Disappearing	1902-1906-1906-1943	$ 211,500	Used for Battery AMTB 23 - Parrott 1943-1946
Battery Humphreys (3)	1	10"	Disappearing	1897-1910	$ 59,965	Destroyed
Battery Eustis	2	10"	Disappearing	1898-1900-1901-1942	$ 80.767	Destroyed
Battery Church	2	10"	Disappearing	1897-1900-1901-1942	$ 90,473
Battery Bomford	2	10"	Disappearing	1891-1897-1897-1942	$ 175,348	Destroyed
Northeast Bastion Battery	1	10"	Disappearing	1900-1908	$ ?
Battery Barber	1	8"	Barbette	1898-1915	$ 1,663	Destroyed
Battery Parapet	4	8"	Barbette	1898-1915	$ 1,611	Mostly buried
Battery Montgomery (2)	2	6"	Pedestal	1901-1903-1904-1948	$ 24,000	Guns removed 1917 Guns replaced 1919 Guns removed 1941 Destroyed
Battery Gatewood	4	4.7"	Armstrong	1898-1914	$ 2,956	Mostly buried
Battery Irwin	4	3"	Masking Parapet	1900-1903-1903-1920	$ 12,500	2, 3" Guns from Fort Wool (1) Battery Hindman in 1946
Source: CDSG

World War I

Fort Monroe became a training camp for artillery officers headed for the war in Europe. Initially, the instruction focused on coastal artillery methods but later the instruction shifted toward the mobile versions of the large caliber artillery. Coastal forts around the country were ordered to dismount specific types of large caliber coastal gun tubes and ship them to arsenals for modification to mobile configurations. Fort Monroe escape this redistribution of coastal guns probably because it was the training school and the guns were needed for training. Fort Monroe became so crowded that Camp Eustis was established to provide a training camp and embarkation point for troops headed for the front. Land fill was used to expand the Fort Monroe reservation by some 25 acres to hold the increased number of temporary buildings required for operations. With the armistice in November 1918, the focus abruptly changed from training to demobilization although some of the classes in progress continued.

After the war, Fort Monroe became the center of coastal artillery activity. Demobilization and massive reductions in the Army's budget forced a significant reduction in that activity. A number of installations and gun batteries were placed in caretaker status because there was not enough funding for manpower and maintenance. Several types of weapons were declared obsolete and scrapped as a result of the disarmament program.

World War II

By the start of World War II most of the large caliber coastal gun batteries on Fort Monroe were obsolete in that they were outranged, slow firing and had no protection from overhead aircraft attack. All of the remaining 10" guns were scrapped during the first large scale scrap drive in late 1942. The 12" mortars were removed shortly thereafter in 1943. By the start of 1945, all of the large caliber Endicott Period guns were gone and only the 6" guns in Battery Montgomery (2) remained. New batteries were planned for Fort Monroe including 16" Battery 124 and Battery AMTB 23 Parrott. Battery AMTB 23 Parrott was built into the old Battery Parrott but Battery 124 was never built.

**Fort Monroe World War II Battery** (edit list)
Battery Click on Battery links below	No.	Caliber	Type Mount	Service Years	Battery Cost	Notes
Battery AMTB 23 - Parrott	2	90 mm	Fixed Pedestal	1943-1943-1943-1946	$ 17,289	Built on Battery Parrott
Battery 124	2	16"	Long Range Barbette Carriage Navy Gun (1940 Program)	Not Built	$ ?
Source: CDSG

Fort Monroe housed the Headquarters for the Chesapeake Bay Sector of the Eastern Defense Command, a Joint Operations Center (JOC) and Harbor Entrance Command Post (HECP) #2. The HECP was responsible for examining and clearing all ship traffic entering Chesapeake Bay. Ship traffic volume reached over a hundred ships a day at the end of 1943. Fort Monroe was also responsible for six groups of mines and two Anti-Motor Torbedo Boat (AMTB) nets controlled by HECP #2. Battery AMTB 23 Parrott provided protection for the mine fields and nets.

The facilities at Fort Monroe expanded to meet the increased enrollment in the Coast Artillery School and other training activities.

In 1946 the Headquarters of U.S. Army Ground Forces was moved to Fort Monroe and the Coast Artillery School was moved from Fort Monroe to Fort Winfield Scott in San Francisco.

Current

Active Army installation housing the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and the Casemate Museum. Two mounted guns and carriages are in Battery Irwin and one mounted gun in the Battery Parrott AMTB. Due for BRAC closure in September 2011.

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Location: Old Point Comfort, Hampton, Virginia.

Maps & Images

Lat: 37.004129 Long: -76.307237

Multi Maps from ACME
Maps from Bing
Maps from Google
Elevation:

Sources:

Roberts, Robert B., Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States, Macmillan, New York, 1988, 10th printing, ISBN 0-02-926880-X, page 815-818
Lewis, Emanuel Raymond, Seacoast Fortifications of the United States: An Introductory History, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 7th printing, 1993, ISBN 1-55750-502-0, page 41-43
Kaufmann, J.E. and Kaufmann, H.W., Fortress America: The Forts That Defended America, 1600 to the Present, DaCapo Press, 2004, ISBN 0-306-81294-0, page 216-217, 293
Robinson, Willard B., American Forts: Architectural Form and Function, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1977, ISBN 0-252-00589-9, page 99

Links:

Visited: 22 Jul 2010

Picture Gallery

Click on the picture to see a larger version. Contribute additional pictures - the more the better!

Fort Monroe in Harpers Weekly during the U.S. Civil War

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 In 1946 the Headquarters of U.S. Army Ground Forces was moved to Fort Monroe and the Coast Artillery School was moved from Fort Monroe to [[Fort Winfield Scott]] in San Francisco.
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