Editing Fort Monroe (section)

===Early 19th century===
[[File:Lighthouse at Fort Monroe.jpg|thumbnail|right|The [[Old Point Comfort Light]] at Fort Monroe, built in 1802]]
[[File:The American Soldier 1827-2.png|thumb|The [[Artillery School of Practice]] was organized at Fort Monroe in 1824.]]
The site of Fort Monroe was first garrisoned in June 1823 by Battery G of the [[3rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment|3rd U.S. Artillery Regiment]]<ref name=FWikiMon1/> commanded by Captain [[Mann P. Lomax]].

As a young first lieutenant and engineer in the U.S. Army, [[Robert E. Lee]] was stationed at the fort from 1831 to 1834 and played a major role in its final construction and its opposite, Fort Calhoun (renamed [[Fort Wool]] in 1862). He resided at [[Quarters 17 (Fort Monroe)|Quarters 17]].<ref name=VAnom2>{{cite web|url=http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Cities/Hampton/114-0002-0005_Quarters_17_Ft_Monroe_2010_nomination_FINAL.pdf |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Quarters 17 |author=Katherine D. Klepper |date=n.d.|publisher=Virginia Department of Historic Resources}}</ref> Fort Calhoun was built on a [[man-made island]] called the [[Rip Raps]] across the navigation channel from [[Old Point Comfort]] in the middle of the mouth of Hampton Roads.{{sfn|Weaver II|2018|pp=186–190}} The Army briefly detained the Native American chieftain [[Black Hawk (chief)|Black Hawk]] at Fort Monroe, following the 1832 Black Hawk War.

When construction was completed in 1834, Fort Monroe was referred to as the "[[Gibraltar]] of Chesapeake Bay." The fort mounted an impressive complement of powerful artillery: 42-pounder [[cannon]] with a range of over one mile. In conjunction with Fort Calhoun (later Fort Wool), this was just enough range to cover the main shipping channel into the area. (Decommissioned after [[World War II|World War&nbsp;II]], the former Fort Wool on [[Rip Raps]] is now adjacent to the southern man-made island of the [[Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel]], first completed in 1957.)

From 1824 to 1946 Fort Monroe was the site of a series of schools of artillery. The first was the [[Artillery School of Practice]]. The school was closed in 1834 but was revived during the period 1858–61. It was succeeded by the [[U.S. Army Artillery School|Artillery School of the U.S. Army]], which existed from 1867 until its redesignation in 1907 as the [[U.S. Army Coast Artillery School|Coast Artillery School]]. Fort Monroe also hosted the Old Point Comfort Proving Ground for testing artillery and ammunition from the 1830s to 1861; after the Civil War this function relocated to the [[Sandy Hook Proving Ground]] in New Jersey.<ref name=NAFortsHamp1/>