to the point where at low tide he could see a sandbar.

 

He stared out over the narrow channel where the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia

had fought the first naval duel between ironclads. The channel was shallow and

the deeper part was on the Fort Monroe side, so the ships coming in would hug

the shore there.

 

He remembered that the aircraft carriers would come so close to land they would

shade the parade grounds.

 

Back then Rogers had learned as much about Fort Monroe’s history as he could.

Across that same channel three slaves had rowed across at the start of the Civil

War and asked for refuge. The garrison commander, Major General Benjamin Butler,

had agreed.

 

When the Confederates, under a white flag, had shown up and demanded their

return under the recently passed federal law about runaway slaves, Butler, a

former lawyer, had given the rebels a lesson in the nuances of the law. Since

they had seceded from the United States, Butler told them, they were no longer

entitled to the protections of federal law. And since the slaves were being used

in the war effort against the Union, Butler was treating them as contraband to

be kept by the United States. Word of this reached the ears of many slaves, and

thousands ended up seeking refugee status as “contraband” in what became known

as “Freedom’s Fortress.” Rogers’s walk had taken him past the Old Point Comfort

Lighthouse. It had been built in 1802 and still worked, making it the oldest