The ghosts of Fort Monroe

Ghost-hunters might have an interesting time at Fort Monroe, with a few celebrity ghosts for good measure!

Fort Monroe is a six-sided enclosure, within a moat, on a peninsula overlooking Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, USA. It covers a huge area (more than 500 acres) and contains more than 150 buildings, many of them of historical interest. It has been associated with several ghostly sightings, some of them being of well-known people who have been incarcerated there.

One of these was Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States who was taken to Fort Monroe in shackles in 1865 after he had led the losing side in the American Civil War. His wife Varina later joined him and pleaded that, because his health was failing fast, he be allowed to die in peace in a private apartment rather than a prison cell. However, Davis survived the experience and lived for another 24 years. Despite not dying anywhere near Fort Monroe, the ghosts of both Jefferson Davis and his wife are said to haunt the fort, with Davis being seen in his former cell and Varina in the bedroom of a house that had a view of the prison block.

Another famous name associated with Fort Monroe is Edgar Allan Poe, who was there for four months in 1829 as part of his short military career before he became a full-time writer. Poe’s ghost is said to have been seen in the building that was his former barracks. Perhaps it is not coincidental that, during his time at Fort Monroe, Poe wrote “The Cask of Amontillado”, which is a story about a military man who is walled up in an empty stone building.

Another ghost is that of the “Light Lady”. This is Camille Kirtz. Her husband found her with her French lover on a lane within the fort. He shot at both of them, but although the lover escaped Camille was not so lucky and was killed. Her ghost wanders forever in a grove of oak trees as she searches for her lover.

Two ghost children have also been spotted, and it is believed by some people that they seek out real children to play with. The story goes that they died, either of disease or hunger, within the walls of Fort Monroe. One is seen in an upstairs room of a house next to the moat of the fort, while the other is in the basement of a house that belonged to a former soldier.

Whatever the truth of these stories, Fort Monroe is very much on the American ghost-hunter’s trail as a place of interest.

© John Welford