Est. 1819 · Jefferson Davis Imprisonment 1865-1867 · Fort Monroe Casemates, Largest US Stone Fort · Edgar Allan Poe Army Service Site · National Park Service National Monument · Civil War Union Stronghold
Fort Monroe's Casemate Museum is housed within the thick brick gun-casemates of the largest stone fortification ever built in the United States. Construction on Fort Monroe began in 1819 under the direction of Gen. Simon Bernard and Brig. Gen. Joseph G. Totten, with the massive moat-encircled fort reaching operational status in 1834. The casemates — vaulted embrasures designed to shelter heavy artillery pieces — run along the interior walls of the fort and now contain the museum's 24 exhibit rooms.
The museum's primary historical exhibit is the preserved cell where Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, was held in close confinement following his capture in May 1865. Davis was initially shackled with leg irons — a humiliation documented in the official records of the period — and held in Casemate No. 2 before being moved to more comfortable quarters at the fort while awaiting trial. He was never tried; the federal government released him in 1867 after two years of imprisonment. The cell is presented as it appeared during his confinement.
Edgar Allan Poe served at Fort Monroe in 1828-29 under the name Edgar A. Perry, eventually reaching the rank of sergeant major of artillery before leaving to pursue writing. His time at Old Point Comfort is considered a formative period. Fort Monroe is also the site where, in August 1619, the White Lion brought the first documented enslaved Africans to English North America — a history that the museum and the broader Fort Monroe National Monument now interpret as a foundational American story.
The Casemate Museum is operated by the Fort Monroe Authority under a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.
Sources
- https://www.army.mil/article/27725/the_haunting_of_fort_monroe
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Monroe
- https://fortmonroe.org/museums-archives/casemate-museum/
EVP recordingsPhantom hoofbeatsApparitionsOrb photographsCold spots
The U.S. Army published a formal feature on Fort Monroe's paranormal history in 2009, an unusual institutional acknowledgment that identifies several specific locations and accounts within the post. The Casemate Museum's embrasures are among the areas explicitly mentioned in the article, which describes paranormal investigators recording EVP (electronic voice phenomena), capturing orb photographs inside the gun-bays, and hearing the distinct sound of horse hooves in the brick corridors where no animals have been kept for well over a century.
The White Lady is the most frequently reported apparitional figure associated with the casemates and the surrounding officers' quarters. Local tradition holds that she was the young wife of a ship captain stationed at Fort Monroe, shot by her husband after he became convinced she had been unfaithful. Her figure is described as a young woman in period dress, moving along the parapet or appearing near the officers' quarters windows before disappearing. The White Lady tradition predates the Army's 2009 article and appears in Portsmouth and Hampton ghost walk documentation going back several decades.
Jefferson Davis's ghost is reported walking the ramparts at night, a tradition that derives from accounts of a figure in period clothing seen near Casemate No. 2 and on the fort's exterior walls. The Army.mil article also documents a child visiting the Casemate Museum who pointed to the portrait of Edgar Allan Poe and identified him as someone who had appeared in their bedroom — an account that has circulated widely in Virginia paranormal tourism writing since the article's publication.
The site's paranormal tradition is grounded in better documentation than most: an official Army publication, a 40-year ghost walk tradition, and multiple generations of resident and visitor accounts from an occupied military post.
Notable Entities
The White LadyJefferson DavisEdgar Allan Poe
Media Appearances
- The Haunting of Fort Monroe (Army.mil feature article, 2009)
