Fort Wool is a decommissioned island fortification located in the mouth of Hampton Roads, adjacent to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT). Officially known as Rip Raps Island, the fort has an elevation of 7 feet and sits near Old Point Comfort, Old Point Comfort Light, Willoughby Beach and Willoughby Spit, approximately one mile south of Fort Monroe.
Fort Wool
The Sawyer gun being demonstrated by Major General Benjamin Butler for Major General Wool at the Rip Raps (Fort Calhoun), 1861
Fort Wool in 1921
The battle of the ironclads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point near where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.
Satellite view of Hampton Roads with the Hampton Roads channel at center. (City urban centers visible, clockwise from top: Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth)
View of the Elizabeth River with Downtown Norfolk at top right. The carrier in the foreground is USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75).
Hampton is a Hampton Roads community.
Hampton Roads from space
