The Virginia Capes are the two capes, Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south, that define the entrance to

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...

on the eastern coast of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

. In 1610, a supply ship learned of the famine at Jamestown when it landed at Cape Henry. "America and West Indies: June 1610." ''Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies'': Volume 1, 1574-1660. Ed. W Noel Sainsbury. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1860. 9-10
British History Online.
Retrieved 13 June 2019. The importance of Chesapeake Bay in American history has long made the Virginia Capes strategically significant, most notably in the naval Battle of the Chesapeake that was crucial to the American victory at the

siege of Yorktown The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German battle (from the presence of Germans in all three armies), beginning on September 28, 1781, and ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virg ...

, effectively ending the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. As a result, the area was heavily garrisoned, beginning with the construction of Fort Monroe and Fort Wool in 1819. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, a pivotal battle between the ironclad warships and was fought in Hampton Roads. The ''Virginia'' was attempting to break the

Union blockade The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading. The blockade was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, and required the monitoring of of Atlanti ...

that was strangling the Confederacy. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, additional gun batteries were installed on Cape Henry at Fort Story and on Fisherman's Island near Cape Charles. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the coast artillery batteries at Fort Story were expanded and additional batteries were installed at Fort John Custis on Cape Charles to guard the entrance to Hampton Roads Harbor. More recently, because of the close proximity of many military installations, including Naval Station Norfolk, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek–Fort Story, NAS Oceana, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and

Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the largest industrial employer in Virginia, and sole designer, builder and refueler of United States Navy aircraft carriers and one of two providers of U.S. Nav ...

, the Capes area has often been used for the initial trials of new Navy ships and for military training exercises.

References

Headlands of Virginia {{VirginiaBeachVA-geo-stub