Sailing ships entering the James River from an ocean voyage had to dump their ballast before proceeding into the Hampton harbor. Sea going vessels use ballast to correct the trim characteristics of the ship after taking on a cargo. It’s important that the ship doesn’t sit to high in the water and rides evenly fore and aft. Now day’s ships use water to accomplish this task, but in the days of wooden ships and iron men they used rip rap.

The approach to for Wool from the Bay.

Rip rap are stones usually about the size of you fist with irregular sides. The irregular stones, unlike smooth ones, lock together so they don’t shift during rough seas. In many coastal cities the rip rap was used as cobblestones or for erosion control on levees. In Hampton the rip rap was dumped onto a shoal at the mouth of the James River where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. It was a convienent place, right at the mouth of the river and next to the shipping channel.

The view of the Fort from the dock.

The shoal was across the river’s mouth from Fort Monroe, just out of cannon shot range. Over the years the pile of rip rap grew until it formed a shallow reef. In 1817 it was suggested that a fort could be built there which in combination with Fort Monroe would effectively control the mouth of the river. Rock was hauled in and dumped on the rip rap pile until a fifteen acre island was formed.

The east end of the fort is concrete and is of later construction.

The first casement was completed in 1830 but due the constantly sifting nature of the island, construction never completely stopped during the life of the fort. Originally dubbed Fort Riprap the named was changed to Fort Calhoun and was renamed again in 1862 the Civil War after Union Major General John Ellis Wool, famous for capturing Norfolk from the Confederates.

From the dock you can see the diffrence between the stone and the concrete construction.

The fort fired druing the famous battle of the Ironclads and fired on a Confederate fort built on Sewels Point. Reportedly the only damage caused by either firing was the wounding of a mule during the second engagement. But even without firing the two forts effectively sealed up the James River for the Union, and that was really the point of them anyway.

Randome shots from around the fort

Another view of the stone vs. concrete construction taken from the Miss Hampton II.

The east end of the fort is dressed stone and dates back to the origional construction, this is how the fort was built during the Civil War. Rip Rap Island is still shifting and settling after all these years and large portions of the fort are unsafe and off limits.

East end casement.

Gun enplacement with a Dhalgren gun.

Stairway to the upper wall.

Fireplace at the top of the stairs, built by a former caretaker.

Fort Monroe from the wall. it was just beyond the range of the Dhalgren cannon bellow.

The view of the Monitor vs. Merrimac battle site through a Fort Wool gun port.

Same view over the wall.

Sewell's point from Fort Wool.

A Sawyer Gun was deployed to the fort and used to shell a Confederate gun emplacement built over on the point.

The view out into the bay.