The installation had been decommissioned in 2011. Part of it had recently been

designated a national monument by President Obama.

 

It had been named after the fifth president, James Monroe.

 

Surprisingly, the fort had remained in Union hands during the entire American

Civil War and was the launch pad for General Grant’s successful assaults on

Petersburg and the Confederate capital in Richmond that had essentially ended

the war. Former Confederate general Robert E. Lee had been quartered here when

he was still with the United States Army. And Confederate president Jefferson

Davis had been imprisoned at Fort Monroe following the war. A memorial park

there bearing his name had subsequently been created in the 1950s.

 

Puller thought it must have been one of the few times a prisoner was honored

with his very own park.

 

The fort, at the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, had guarded the

navigational channel between Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay since the

early 1600s. The seven-sided fort was the largest stone fort ever constructed in

the United States. It had officially opened and been named Fort Monroe in 1819.

The fort was built to prevent any foreign enemy from landing there, marching up

the coast to Washington, and burning the city down, as the British had done

during the War of 1812.