List of U.S. Army installations named for Confederate soldiers
Numerous military installations in the United States are named after general officers in the Confederate States Army. These are all U.S. Army or Army National Guard posts, named mostly following World War I and during the 1940s.[1][2]
Active installations
Active installations, all in the Southern United States, are:
- Camp Beauregard near Pineville, Louisiana, a Louisiana National Guard installation named for Louisiana native and Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.[3]
- Fort Benning, near Columbus, Georgia, named after Henry L. Benning, a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.[4][5]
- Fort Bragg in North Carolina, named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg.
- Fort Gordon near Grovetown, Georgia, named in honor of John Brown Gordon, who was a major general in the Confederate army.
- Fort A.P. Hill near Bowling Green, Virginia, named for Virginia native and Confederate Lieutenant General A. P. Hill.[6]
- Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, named after Confederate General John Bell Hood, who is best known for commanding the Texas Brigade during the American Civil War.
- Fort Lee in Prince George County, Virginia, named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.[7]
- Camp Maxey near Paris, Texas, a Texas National Guard installation named after Confederate Brigadier General Samuel B. Maxey.
- Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a Virginia National Guard installation named after Confederate Brigadier General William N. Pendleton.
- Fort Pickett near Blackstone, Virginia, a Virginia National Guard installation named for Confederate General George Pickett.
- Fort Polk near Leesville, Louisiana, named in honor of the Right Reverend Leonidas Polk, an Episcopal Bishop and Confederate General.
- Fort Rucker in Dale County, Alabama, named for Edmund Rucker, a colonel appointed acting brigadier general in November 1864, but whose promotion went unconfirmed by the Confederate Congress (disbanded March 18, 1865).
Deactivated installations
Other 20th-century installations, now deactivated, named for Confederate Generals were:
- Camp Breckinridge, in Kentucky, named for John C. Breckinridge.
- Camp Forrest, a large WWII-era training base near Tullahoma, Tennessee named for Nathan Bedford Forrest.
- Camp Pike, a U.S. Army Reserve installation co-located with Camp Joseph T. Robinson outside Little Rock, Arkansas named after Confederate General Albert Pike.
- Camp Van Dorn, another massive WWII-era training facility near Centreville, Mississippi named for Earl Van Dorn.
- Camp Wheeler, in Georgia, named for Joseph Wheeler.
Calls to rename
In June 2020, during nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd by police officers, the U.S. military began rethinking its traditional connection to Confederate Army symbols, including base names. The use of confederate flags, and statues or memorials dedicated to Confederate Army officers, has been seen as part of racism in the country.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy indicated they were "open to a bipartisan discussion", but President Donald Trump said his administration would "not even consider" renaming what he called "Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations" that "have become part of a Great American Heritage, a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom." If Congress were to pass such legislation, said Trump's press secretary, the president would not sign it.[1] In July 2020, U.S. Army general Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that prominent Army bases named for rebel generals are divisive and can be offensive to black people in uniform, noting that the Army is about 20% black. Soldiers on a base named after a Confederate general "can be reminded that that general fought for the institution of slavery that may have enslaved one of their ancestors," Milley said. He has recommended creating a commission to study the matter.[8]
Retired Army General David Petraeus said, "how strange it was that the leaders of the fight against the Union were more widely honored—with their names on federal forts, roads, barracks, gates, housing areas, etc.—than were those who fought for the country. And, of course, those fighting to secede were doing so to preserve the rights of their states to enslave others, with those 'others' now roughly 20 percent of the soldiers serving on those bases."[9] Mick Mulroy, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for James Mattis and a retired Marine, said American soldiers "should serve on bases that are named after the heroes that have sacrificed and fought for our country, not against it" and suggested that they should be re-named after Medal of Honor recipients.[10]
On July 24, 2020, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed (86 to 14 in favor) Senate Bill S.4049,[11] their version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a provision that all 10 Army bases named after prominent Confederate military leaders be renamed.[12] The Senate bill still needs to be combined with the House version of the same bill in the United States congressional conference committee before it can be sent to President Trump for his signature or veto.
See also
- Fort Belvoir, which was renamed from honoring a Union general to one honoring a slave plantation in 1935; it has also attracted support for potential renaming.[13]
- List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests
References
- Burns, Robert (June 10, 2020). "Trump: No change at bases named for Confederate officers". Associated Press. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
- Grosvenor, Edwin S. (June 1, 2020). "Confederates Honored by the U.S. Army". American Heritage Magazine. 65:3 (June 2020).
- "Camp Beauregard, near Alexandria Louisiana in World War II". Alexandria-louisiana.com. Retrieved June 17, 2014.
- Rhea, Gordon (January 25, 2011). "Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought". Civil War Trust. Civil War Trust. Archived from the original on March 21, 2011. Retrieved March 21, 2011.
- Benning, Henry L. (February 18, 1861). "Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention". Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention of 1861. pp. 62–75. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
- "Fort A.P. Hill History". U.S. Army. Retrieved March 18, 2013.
- Royston, Mark W. (2009). The Faces Behind the Bases: Brief Biographies of Those for Whom Our Military Bases Were Named. iUniverse Publishing. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-4401-3712-9.
In 1917 it was announced that the camp would be named for General Robert E. Lee, CSA.
- Burns, Robert (July 9, 2020). "Milley: Confederate names on Army bases divide the military". Associated Press. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
- https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/confederate-bases-military-petraeus.html
- https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reversal-army-now-open-conversation-renaming-bases-named/story?id=71151951
- "S.4049 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021". 116th Congress (2019-2020). July 23, 2020.
- Neuman, Scott (July 24, 2020). "Despite Trump's Veto Threat, Senate Approves Provision To Rename Military Bases". NPR.
- Seidule, Ty (June 16, 2020). "What to rename the Army bases that honor Confederate soldiers". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 1, 2020.