The constantly broadening estuary of the James assumes almost the
proportions of an inland sea, and in the bays encircled by the low
shores are planted the seed oysters, which are gathered by fleets of
small vessels for transplanting into salt-water beds. In front, near
the mouth of the river, is thrust out the long point of Newport News,
with its grain elevators and shipyards, dry-docks and iron-works, the
great port of the James River, which is the busy terminal of railways
coming from the West. Here is a town of thirty thousand people. It was
almost opposite, that in the spring of 1862 the Confederate ram
"Merrimac" (then called the "Virginia"), armored with railroad rails,
came suddenly out from Norfolk, and sank or disabled the American
wooden naval vessels in Hampton Roads; the next day, however, being
unexpectedly encountered by the novel little turret iron-clad
"Monitor," which had most opportunely arrived from the upper Hudson
River, where Ericsson had built her. The "Merrimac" was herself soon
disabled and compelled to retire. This timely and dramatic appearance
of "the little Yankee cheese-box on a raft" made a sudden and
unforeseen revolution in all the naval methods and architecture of the
world. Around the point of Newport News the James River debouches into
one of the finest harbors of the Atlantic Coast, Hampton Roads, named
from the town of Hampton on the northern shore. This is the location
of a Veteran Soldiers' Home, with two thousand inmates, an extensive
Soldiers' Cemetery, and of the spacious buildings of the Normal and
Agricultural Institute for Negroes and Indians, where there are eight
to nine hundred scholars, this being a foundation originally
established by the Freedmen's Bureau, the chief object being the
training of teachers for colored and Indian schools.
The little peninsula of Old Point Comfort, which makes the northern
side of the mouth of the James and juts out into Chesapeake Bay, has
upon it the largest and most elaborate fortification in the United
States--Fortress Monroe. It is related that when Newport and Smith
first entered the bay in 1607, and were desirous of ascending the
James, they coasted along the southern shore and found only shallow
water. Starting out in a boat to hunt for a channel up which their
ships could pass, they rowed over to the northern shore and discovered
deeper water entering the James, close to this little peninsula, there
being twelve fathoms depth, which so encouraged Smith that it
confirmed him in naming the place Point Comfort. This channel, close
inshore, could be readily defended, as it was the only passage for
vessels of any draft, and consequently when the colony got established
at Jamestown they built Fort Algernon at Point Comfort to protect the
entrance to the James. In 1611 this fort was described as consisting
of stockades and posts, without stone or brick, and containing seven
small iron guns, with a garrison of forty men.
After the British invasion of Chesapeake Bay, in 1814, when they burnt
the Capitol and White House at Washington, it was quickly decided that
no foreign foe should be again permitted to do such a thing, and that
an elaborate work should be built to defend the entrance to the bay.
General Simon Bernard, one of Napoleon's noted engineers, offered his
services to the United States after the downfall of the Emperor, and
he was placed in charge, with the duty of constructing, at the mouth
of James River, a fortification which would command the channel into
that river and to the Norfolk Navy Yard, and at the same time be a
base of operations against any fleet attempting to enter the bay and
menace the roadstead. Bernard built in 1819, and several following
years, an elaborate fortress, with a broad moat and outlying
water-battery, enclosing eighty acres, the ramparts being over two
miles in circumference. It was called Fortress Monroe, after the then
President James Monroe, of Virginia. Out upon an artificial island,
known as the Rip-raps, built upon a shoal some two miles off-shore,
and in the harbor entrance, the smaller works of Fort Wool were
subsequently constructed, and the two make a complete defense for the
Chesapeake Bay entrance. During all the years this fortress has
existed it has never had occasion to fire a gun at an enemy, but its
location and strength were invaluable to the North, who held it during
the Civil War. It is the seat of the Artillery School of the army. To
the southward, at the waterside, are the hotels of Old Point Comfort,
which is one of the favorite seaside watering-places of the South. In
front is the great Hampton roadstead, usually containing fleets of
wind-bound vessels and some men-of-war.