There is to be seen the casemate in which Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, was confined after the working out of the destiny of the Lost Cause. It is not different from its neighbors, and is an inconspicuous little compartment in a wall with an ornamental little two-post doorway and one window. Many curious visitors stop before it. Old Point Comfort and all of this section of the lower Chesapeake have seen many strange visitors and cargoes in the Past. Doughty old Captain John Smith came to Hampton Roads and wrote about what he saw with that wealth of picturesque detail which those old chroniclers loved to pour forth. The name Point Comfort itself came from the circumstance that Smith was cast into this Hampton Roads on the wings of a storm at sea and that he hailed the first strip of solid land that he saw as a comfort, indeed. At an early period a settlement was made here, as a subsidiary of the Jamestown colony, and, as early as 1611, a fort was built on the point as a defence against Indians and freebooting marauders of buccaneer type. The fort was armed and known as Fort Algernon, in honor of Lord Algernon Percie, one of the directors of the Virginia Company. The greatest fort of the country was once called Algernon! This little fortification was not of long life, however. It was maintained for a few years by the Jamestown colony but went into decay after the failure of its parent. The strategic value of the Point as a place for defence was not lost sight of, however, in any succeeding generation, though the place was not called into service for many years. [Illustration: By courtesy of the War Department FIRE!!! Showing shells just leaving mortars, Fort Monroe, Va. (This remarkable photograph was taken with modern high speed appatratus by the Corps of Enlisted Specialists stationed at this post.)] The foundations of Fortress Monroe were laid in 1819, and the works were carried forward actively for ten years. The plans were drawn by the famous Bernard, one-time aide-de-camp of the first Napoleon, and one of his leading engineers. It was Bernard’s ambition to construct in the United States (he came to the United States in 1816 and immediately entered the employ of the government) one great fortress like the works of Antwerp, in the fortification of which he had a large share. Fort Monroe, named in honor of the president who did so much to make sure that the coast defences of the country should be adequately founded, was the result of this vision. It is to be seen that the life of the present fortification begins after the War of 1812, but the military history of the vicinity of Fort Monroe prior to that time is full of interest.