Fortress Monroe/Physiognomy of Fortress Monroe
- Physiognomy of Fortress Monroe.
The “Adelaide” is a steamer plying between Baltimore and Norfolk. But as Norfolk has ceased to be a part of the United States, and is nowhere, the “Adelaide” goes no farther than Fortress Monroe, Old Point Comfort, the chief somewhere of this region. A lady, no doubt Adelaide herself, appears in alto rilievo on the paddle-box. She has a short waist, long skirt sans crinoline, leg-of-mutton sleeves, lofty bearing, and stands like Ariadne on an island of pedestal size, surrounded by two or more pre-Raphaelite trees. In the offing comes or goes a steamboat, also pre-Raphaelite; and if Ariadne Adelaide’s Bacchus is on board, he is out of sight at the bar.
Such an Adelaide brought me in sight of Fortress Monroe at sunrise, May 29, 1861. The fort, though old enough to be full-grown, has not grown very tall upon the low sands of Old Point Comfort. It is a big house with a basement story and a garret. The roof is left off, and stories between basement and garret have never been inserted.
But why not be technical? For basement read a tier of casemates, each with a black Cyclops of a big gun peering out; while above in the open air, with not even a parasol over their backs, lie the barbette guns, staring without a wink over sea and shore.
In peace, with a hundred or so soldiers here an there, this vast enclosure might seem a solitude. Now it is a busy city, — a city of one idea. I seem to recollect that D’Israeli said somewhere that every great city was founded on one idea and existed to develop it. This city, into which we have improvised a population, has its idea, — a unit of an idea with two halves. The east half is the recovery of Norfolk, — the west half the occupation of Richmond; and the idea complete is the education of Virginia’s unmannerly and disloyal sons.
Why Secession did not take this great place when its defenders numbered a squad of officers and three hundred men, is mysterious. Floyd and his gang were treacherous enough. What was it? Were they imbecile? Were they timid? Was there, till too late, a doubt whether the traitors at home in Virginia would sustain them in an overt act of such big overture as an attempt here? But they lost the chance, and with it lost the key of Virginia, which General Butler now holds, this 30th day of May, and will presently begin to turn in the lock.
Three hundred men to guard a mile and a half of ramparts! Three hundred to protect some sixty-five broad acres within the walls! But the place was a Thermopylæ, and there was a fine old Leonidas at the head of its three hundred. He was enough to make Spartans of them. Colonel Dimmick was the man, — a quiet, modest, shrewd, faithful, Christian gentleman; and he held all Virginia at bay. The traitors knew, that, so long as the Colonel was here, these black muzzles with their white tompions, like a black eye with a white pupil, meant mischief. To him and his guns, flanking the approaches and ready to pile the moat full of Seceders, the country owes the safety of Fortress Monroe.
Within the walls are sundry nice old brick houses for officers’ barracks. The jolly bachelors live in the casemates and the men in long barracks, now not so new or so convenient as they might be. In fact, the physiognomy of Fortress Monroe is not so neat, well-shorn, and elegant as a grand military post should be. Perhaps our Floyds, and the like, thought, if they kept everything in perfect order here, they, as Virginians, accustomed to general seediness, would not find themselves at home. But the new régime must change all this, and make this the biggest, the best equipped, and the model garrison of the country. For, of course, this must be strongly held for many, many years to come. It is idle to suppose that the dull louts we find here, not enlightened even enough to know that loyalty is the best policy, can be allowed the highest privilege of the moral, the intelligent, and the progressive, — self-government. Mind is said to march fast in our time; but mind must put on steam here-abouts to think and at for itself, without stern schooling, in half a century.
But no digressing! I have looked far away from the physiognomy of the fortress. Let us turn to the
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