Along this corridor of history stand a lakeside tavern that once sheltered Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, a house in which George Washington and Benjamin Franklin took supper and the high walls and stone barracks of the largest fort the British ever built in North America,

Indeed, as a view of American military history it may be rivaled only by the vista from Little Round Top at Gettysburg,

Right here in our back yards are the sites of battles and campaigns that are as important in our history as the Civil War, ... Our knowledge of those wars lags far behind the Civil War. When I give talks, people seem to be astonished by the depth and variety of history along the lake.

There are these inexpert American seamen, never in a naval battle before, on their ships waiting for their first fight. It's morning. They look across Cumberland Head and they can see the tops of the British masts above the trees. They are thinking -- Oh my God, what are we facing,

Be sure to climb to the top floor in the fort's northwest corner, where narrow stairs lead up into one of the fort's tiny lookout posts. You'll see the Richelieu as a French soldier of long ago looked for the approach of an enemy,

These are major European powers projecting their power by building these bastions. It gets to the importance of this corridor to them in that age,