J. South wrote:
> Other than being a military outpost and the home for Jefferson 
> Davis during  
> his unconstitutional imprisonment (due process being required), 
> I don't see 
> any  significant historical value to the old fort.  I 
> think it would make a  
> great Disney theme park or condo development.
>  
> J South

I guess it comes down to what you see as important. 

At Fortress Monroe in the summer of 1861, we see the beginning of the final, drawn out phase of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Slaves on the Peninsula had begun making their way to Union Army lines (at the Fortress). The commander there, Gen. Benjamin Butler, initiated a policy of retaining these slaves (i.e., refusing to return them to their disloyal masters) and terming them "contraband of war"--a policy that was approved by Secretary of War Cameron and by the US Congress and President Lincoln with the passage and signing of the First Confiscation Act. For the slaves, it was a dramatic step toward self-emancipation, made all the more poignant by its location--almost exactly where the first cargo of captive Africans in Virginia had disembarked in 1619.

Doug Deal
History/SUNY Oswego

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