HAMPTON, VIRGINIA - Soon it's role as a key US Army facility will be over. The location has been included in the list of those which will be "BRAC'd" (Base Realignment and Closing).
Fort Comfort was the first name that the land that protected the emerging British colonies and it was over 100 years ago that "FORTRESS MONROE" was erected (Robert E. Lee, an engineer, was instrumental in its construction along with Fort Wool, which occupied a man-made island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay) --- With these two fortifications in place, the area was given the name of
The Gibraltar of Chesapeake Bay!
Within the Fortress Walls are some interesting historical landmarks (Chapel of the Centurion, The quarters where Robert E. Lee resided) and items (A Lincoln Gun)
Ironically, after the US Civil War, Confederate President, Jefferson Davis was incarcerated at Fortress Monroe (I met a Civil War re-enactor who was portraying Lee and when I asked him about this irony at his work in Hampton, Virginia, he replied, "But that was not my first work - Fort Pulaski, Savannah, Georgia was...")
The commonwealth of Virginia ponders what to do with this hallowed landmark, developers want to turn it into housing --- the hotel that sat outside the Fortress has already been turned into senior living accommodations.
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