Editing Fort Wool (section)

===Design and construction===
Brigadier-General of Engineers [[Simon Bernard]] was tasked by Secretary of War [[John C. Calhoun]] to create or improve fortifications for the protection of vital U.S. ports.<ref>See "Harbor Defenses of the United States of America" [https://cdsg.org/short-history/ Short history of US forts at CDSG.org]</ref> Bernard's plan was to build more than forty new forts, including Fort Wool, which he had named Fort Calhoun.<ref>See "The First, Second, and Third Systems, 1794–1860" [https://cdsg.org/united-states-seacoast-defense-construction-1781-1948-a-brief-history/ CDSG website].</ref> The fort was to have three tiers of [[casemate]]s and a [[barbette]] tier with a total of 216 muzzle-loading [[cannon]] mounted, and was to be manned by a garrison of 1,000 soldiers. With four tiers, it was planned as the first "tower fort" of the third system, resembling the four-tier [[Castle Williams]] in New York harbor. Early plans called it "Castle Calhoun". The fort was effectively a [[sea fort]], as the island had to be built up considerably to accommodate it. The fort was planned as a shallow "V" shape pointing north, with rounded ends. It was to be built on a {{convert|15|acre}} [[artificial island]] southeast of [[Old Point Comfort]] in [[Hampton, Virginia]]. Construction got underway in 1819 when crews started dumping granite boulders into the water. It took four years to bring the rock pile up to the 6-foot-tall island called for in the plans, and three more years before the foundation was ready to begin the fort's construction.<ref name="GMU">
{{cite web
| title = The Chesapeake Bay: Avenue for Attack
| url = http://www.virginiaplaces.org/chesbay/chesattack.html
| publisher  = George Mason University
| access-date = 21 December 2012
}}
</ref>{{sfn|Weaver II|2018|pp=186–190}}

Construction of the fort began in 1826, and after considerable delays caused by subsidence of the island, two-thirds of the first level of casemates was finally completed in 1830.{{sfn|Weaver II|2018|pp=186–190}} Construction continued through 1834, and only half of the second tier was completed. It was then found that Fort Calhoun's foundations had [[subsidence|continued settling]]. Reports to the chief of engineers repeatedly state that the island had stabilized and construction could continue "the next year". In fact, the island continues to settle in the early 21st century.{{sfn|Weaver II|2018|pp=186–190}} A young second lieutenant and engineer in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]], [[Robert E. Lee]] was transferred there to assist Captain [[Andrew Talcott]], the U.S. Army engineer in charge of the construction of Fort Wool and its larger companion Fort Monroe, across the channel on the mainland. Lee was given the task of stabilizing the island as his first independent command.  He found that the island would not hold the weight of the two tiers of casemates and brought more stone in to stabilize it, but the fort never reached its intended size. Lee found the stone foundation under the fort was the problem and that it could not support the weight of four tiers of the completed fort.<ref>Freeman 1934, Chapter 7.</ref>

Work on the structure began again in 1858,<ref name="FWiki1" /> but the outbreak of the [[American Civil War]] in 1861 brought the fort's construction to a halt, with one complete tier and one open-top tier of casemates on about two-thirds of the designed perimeter. The south-facing "gorge" or back of the fort remained open.{{sfn|Weaver II|2018|pp=186–190}}