Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 1. Named for Confederate Generals
Camp Cody, New Mexico. This camp was named after a figure associated with Wyoming, but not from Wyoming, Buffalo Bill Cody. It operated from 1917 to 1919.
This is a post that I’m posting here following a discussion I read elsewhere on the seemingly probable, and now apparently Presidentially derailed, decision of the U.S. Army to rename a collection of forts that were named after Confederate generals in the 1917 to 1942 period (or give or take a few years on either side of that). That lead me to pondering the names of posts in Wyoming, and how they were named, which is what this blog entry was originally going to be about. It grew so large, however, that I've now busted into at least three parts.
First an item on those posts from the blog Tasks and Purpose. I was trying to remember what they all were, and couldn't (or didn't realize the association) and that website cleared that up, and added a little more detail. As they noted:
For those who might not be familiar with it, and by way of a brief introduction to the topic, U.S. Army military posts are frequently, but not always, named after prior significant or heroic Army figures. The Air Force also does this as well. Neither service, as noted, uniformly does this and there are exceptions to this practice. Indeed, the exceptions aren't uncommon.“The bases are named for the following Confederate officers: Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Braxton Bragg, Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, Gen. John Bell Hood, Lt. Gen. John Brown Gordon, Lt. Gen. A.P Hill, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk, Maj. General George E. Pickett, Brig. Gen. Henry Benning, and Col. Edmund W. Rucker.Among those commanders: Gordon is believed to have become the leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia; Pickett ordered the execution of 22 prisoners who had switched from the Confederate to Union army; Bragg was fired after being defeated at Chattanooga and was also roundly despised by his peers and subordinates; and Hood’s military career came to an ignominious end after his army was smashed at the Battle of Nashville.”
Anyhow, one thing that this tread, which is growing to the overlong stage, will explore a bit is the history of naming conventions. And what we'll tend to find looking at that is that who things are named after changes quite a bit over time. During the Revolutionary War, for example, forts were fairly frequently named after presently serving commanders, in the American case, not always wisely. Ft. Washington, for example, was outside of the City of New York and didn't stand up at all to the British assault on it.
Anyhow, period from 1917 to 1942 provides a really odd example of naming practices in that its the only instance in American history when posts were named after people who had been treasonous.
Camp Wheeler, Georgia, named after Confederate general Joseph Wheeler. Camp Wheeler was used from 1917 to 1919, and again from 1940 to 1945, after which the land was returned to its original owners.
In recent days there's been a service wide movement to address Confederate symbols in the military, the first of which was an order by the Commandant of the Marine Corps banning the Confederate battle flag from appearing in any form on Marine Corps installations. The Navy followed suit but the Army, which has the only official vestiges of the Confederacy, demurred on the topic of renaming those military bases which had been named for Confederate Army figures, something that was done in the 1917 to 1942 time frame. President Trump has apparently put the kibosh on this, noting:
It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations...
Camp Custer, Michigan. 1918. This camp was obviously named after Michigan native Col. George A. Custer. I've put it up here to illustrate that problems with who forts are named after may be a bit more problematic than the news at first seems. Camp Custer went into military service in 1917 and is still used today by the Michigan National Guard.
Meanwhile, the Army itself has indicated that it has intended to start the process of looking at new names for the posts and the current defense appropriations bill would require it.
So what are those posts?
The Confederate Named Posts.
The actual installations are:
Camp Beauregard (Louisiana National Guard)
Camp Beauregard was established in 1917 as part of the World War One build up. In 1919 it was returned to the state, following the war. It became a Federal installation again in 1940 which used it as a major training base during World War Two. Following the war, the Federal Government returned it to the state, which used it for a couple of years and then deactivated it. It returned to Louisiana National Guard use in 1973.
The post is named after P.G.T. Beauregard who was a career Army officer who fought in the Mexican War but who resigned to join the Confederate forces at the start of the Civil War. A native Louisiana, he held mixed views that make him stand somewhat apart from most Confederate figures, something that tended to be more common with Louisianans as it reflected their Catholic background. His family had owned slaves itself and he was a post war opponent of Reconstruction in the South, even as, at the same time, he went on record on more than one occasion urging white Southerners to accept full equality for blacks and he urged black land ownership, something we also have a post on.
The choice of the name of this post reflects that Beauregard was a Louisianan. Renaming this post might be something that even those urging renaming might reconsider, as Beauregard was not only a rebel against his country, which he was, but he was one that rethought white Southern positions on the equality of blacks, which he urged be accepted after the war when it would not have been a popular thing to do. He moved on rapidly after the war to look very far forward towards a new Louisiana, and was even the subject of a memorial poem by black Creole Victor Rillieux upon his death.
Ft. Benning, Georgia
Ft. Benning is a massive U.S. Army installation in Georgia which is home to the Army's Infantry and Armor schools. It was established as Camp Benning in October, 1918, making it a post established at the tail end of the First World War, and was converted to permanent status in 1920. It's been a major U.S. Army installation ever since.
Benning was named for Confederate general Henry L. Benning. Benning was a lawyer from Columbus, Georgia, and therefore different from some of the other Southern figures that have posts named after him in that he had no service in the U.S. Army at all. He was an ardent and radical proponent of slavery and proposed a Southern system designed to permanently institutionalize it out of the fear that the arch of history would start to eliminate it in the northern most Southern states. As a Justice in the Georgia Supreme Court he was of the view that the court was free to ignore decisions made by the United States Supreme Court. He joined the Confederate service during the war, survived it, and returned to the practice of law following it, at which time he was essentially financially ruined by the war. He died in 1875 of a stroke.
Henry Benning provides a really good example of why some would like to rename these posts. It's baffling why a post was named after him in the first place and it seems to be simply because he was a Southern Civil War figure from Georgia. There's very little to admire about Benning personally in that he was such a dedicated proponent of slavery and succession that his views were radically in that direction even for Southerners.
Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.
Ft. Bragg is currently the most populous military installation in the world with 50,000 residents. It started its existence in 1918 as an artillery training center and was converted to a permanent installation in 1922. During World War Two it became associated with the airborne and it remains associated with them and special warfare units today.
Ft. Bragg was named after Braxton Bragg, who had served as a U.S. Army officer in the Second Seminole War and the Mexican War before leaving the Army in 1856 to purchase a sugar plantation in Louisiana. He was, accordingly, a slave holder and the Southern born Bragg had never been known to oppose slavery. His long service in the Army resulted in a military sense of discipline over his slaves which in turn resulted in the quick profitability of the plantation. Pretty clearly, therefore, he had a vested interest in slavery.
Bragg's reputation as a commander hasn't held up well post war, a war which he survived. He relied upon frontal assaults which, contrary to the widespread movie fed belief, were already past their military prime after the early stages of the war.. He lost his plantation due to the war and died in 1876 of a stroke, at age 59, in Texas.
Bragg's poor reputation as a Civil War commander has caused some to wonder, on this topic, why any post was ever named after him. Oddly enough, it was the second time a fort was named for Braxton Bragg, however, as a military post in northern California was named that upon being established in 1857. In that instance the field commander at the location named the post after his former Mexican War commander, Braxton Bragg, who at that time had no association with the Confederacy as the naming predated it. In 2015, prior to current events, there was a petition to rename the town given Bragg's later association with the armed effort to keep men enslaved in the South.
Bragg points out the problem with renaming posts. The post has become so closely associated with the Airborne that mentioning it is more likely to bring to mind the Airborne of World War Two, or the Special Forces of the Cold War, than it is to bring to mind Braxton Bragg.
Ft. Gordon, Georgia.
The first Camp Gordon was one of the many World War One training camps established as part of the effort to train troops for the Great War. It was the training camp for the 82nd Division, one of the divisions made up of conscripts during the war, with that division being given the name the "All American" division, as its men were drawn from across the country. Having said that, half of those men were from Georgia and of course additional men were from Southern states, such as the units most famous Great War soldier, Alvin York of Tennessee. The Camp was disbanded in 1921 and the real estate sold.
When the Second World War created a demand for training camps once again, a second Camp Gordon was established in Georgia in a different location. It seems to have been named Camp Gordon as the first Georgia Camp Gordon was named that. The second Camp Gordon achieved permanent fort status in 1956. The Army's important cyber school is located there today.
The first one, and hence the second one, were named after Confederate General John Brown Gordon. Gordon was a Georgia lawyer and planter, although he was not a large slave owner. In the 1860 census he reported owning a single slave, a 14 year old girl, while his father owned a further four. He rose high in Confederate ranks during the war and was highly regarded by Robert E. Lee. Following the war he had an extremely successful career in politics serving in the United States Senate and as the Governor of Georgia.
He is also believed to have been the titular head of the Klu Klux Klan in Georgia, a charge he denied, although he admitted to be part of a secret "peace police" organization. The KKK records and organization was so secretive at the time that it's proven impossible to prove the charge.
Gordon provides an example of the sort of person the Army shouldn't have honored with a camp name, and beyond that, the bizarre nature of post Civil War American politics in that he actually served as the Presiden to the United States Senate at one time, the first post Civil War Southerner to do so. If he'd clearly had a change of heart regarding the rebellion and slavery that would be one thing, but clearly, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Given that, and given that this fort doesn't have a strong connection with post World War One history the way that some other Army posts do, renaming this post doesn't involve the considerations that renaming the others might.
Ft. Hood
Fort Hood stands out in this list as it was established in 1942, during World War Two, and therefore comes a good generation after the Lost Cause naming of most of the other installations in this list. Having said that, by 1942 the Lost Cause version of the South was highly established and even widely accepted in some circles, having just been celebrated in the film Gone With The Wind. It's one of the largest military installations in the world.
The post was named for Confederate general John Bell Hood, a West Point graduate who entered the U.S. Army in the late 1850s. A Kentuckian who has served with the U.S. Army in Texas, he resigned from the Army after the start of the Civil War and ended up joining the Confederate forces in Texas as he was upset that his native Kentucky had not declared for the Confederacy. He was an outright racist. A young man during the war, he married after the war and worked as an insurance company representative. He fathered eleven children with his wife and died of the yellow fever in 1879 at age 48. The same epidemic that killed him, and one of his daughters, destroyed his companies finances and his family was supported by a Texas veterans organization for the following twenty years.
Hood was the youngest individual to be given command of an army during the Civil War which is likely why he came to mind when Camp Hood was named, combined with his association with Texas. He wasn't a Texan and lived after the war in New Orleans. It's curious that as late as 1942, with many examples of heroism having been provided by the recently fought World War One, that the Army was still naming posts after Civil War generals, let alone Confederate civil war generals.
Ft. A.P. Hill
Fort A. P. Hill is a training range in Kentucky. This is a post that I frankly haven't heard of. Like Benning, this post was established in the 1940s, with this one being established in 1941, just prior to the war. It was named after Virginia native and Confederate general Ambrose Powell Hill. Hill was a West Point graduate who had a cavalry command that did not see action during the Mexican War, after which he transferred to the Coastal Artillery. He resigned his commission just prior to the Civil War and joined the Confederate forces when the war commenced.
Hill was very well liked by the men under his command and most fellow officers. His career was hampered by constant ill health due to the effects of gonorrhea contracted while he was at West Point. He was not a great commander and is sometimes cited as an example of the Peter Principle at work in a military command. Unlike some of the other Confederate figures here he's not personally associated with ardent racism and seems to have gone with the South simply because he was a Virginian. Having said that, he was vocal about not wanting to live in a defeated South and got his wish when he was shot dead by a Union officer when he was attempting to quixotically demand the Union troops surrender. This came just seven days prior to the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and therefore at a time at which the South had obviously lost the war.
Hill likely would not be a candidate for the naming of a post today even if he were a Union officer.
Ft. Lee, Virginia.
This post was established in 1917 as Camp Lee in 1917 and rapidly expanded in size. Oddly enough the name had already been used by the Navy, which is surprising. It was disestablished in 1920 and then reestablished in 1940. It became Ft. Lee in 1950 when it became a training location for the Quartermaster Corps.
The fort is named for Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee is probably the most beloved of the Confederate generals but his reputation ignores that he was a slave owner who had a long career in the U.S. Army prior to the war and who was offered command of the Army by Lincoln but resigned rather than fight in a war against Virginians, only to join the rebellion and fight against the nation he'd sworn a loyalty oath to in the first place. He was a good an effective general but his conscience was obvious pretty elastic towards some very serious matters.
If a person is inclined to want to change the names of these posts this is one that, interestingly enough, might be capable of being salvaged as there have been a number of well known U.S. officers by that name. Charles Lee was a Continental Major General during the Revolution. "Light Horse" Henry Lee also served during the Revolution and again during the Whiskey Rebellion, putting the father of Robert E. Lee, as he was, in the ironic position of commanding the suppression of an earlier rebellion. William C. Lee was a Major General during World War Two and was the commander of the 101st Airborne. John H.C. Lee was a Lieutenant General who was in charge of logistics in the ETO during World War Two. Indeed, John H.C. Lee, while a controversial figure, probably makes more sense than Robert E. Lee in terms of a naming influence for an ordinance post, and William C. Lee, the "father of the airborne", would be a good choice for an updated naming.
Ft. Pickett (Virginia National Guard)
Ft. Pickett is obviously named after Confederate General George Pickett of Pickett's Charge fame.
Ft. Pickett was established as Camp Pickett in 1941 as part of the build up during World War Two. It had been a Civilian Conservation Corps camp prior to that, although not with Pickett's name. The post has an odd history in that following World War Two it was basically disestablished and then reestablished to support Operation Portex, a large war game, that was staged in 1950, just prior to the Korean War. After that the camp remained being used and was transferred as a military establishment to the National Guard, although it received heavy use from other reserve and active components. In 1960 the post was converted for Guard and Reserve training cycles and then it achieved permanent fort status in 1974.
The use of Gen. Pickett's name for this post seems to follow on the naming customs that were adopted during World War One as the government chose Pickett's name because this was a Southern post. In doing this, it named the post after another example of a Southern born regular Army officer who had resigned his commission to join the Confederate forces. In his case, this involved considerable effort as he was stationed at the time on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington State, where he had been involved in the armed standoff of the Pig War a year prior. After a lengthy sea voyage, he joined the Confederate army.
Pickett's service is subject to some mixed reviews as to how good of an officer he was. Obviously fondly recalled by Southerners because of his doomed charge at Gettysburg, he is not uniformly regarded as a great commander. He did have a measure of wit, however, as he was noted to have commented after the war, when asked about why the doomed charge had failed, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it". On another occasion, that being a post war gathering of former officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, he'd turned to a companion and blamed Lee for the horrific loss, which is something that Lee deserved, noting that "That's the man who lost my division".
While Pickett is recalled principally for that charge today, he himself feared he'd be recalled by the United States for ordering the execution of 22 Union soldiers at New Bern, North Carolina in 1864. Those soldiers had in some instances served previously in Confederate home guard units, i.e., state militia. For that matter, prior to this, Pickett had been issuing aggressive orders about the on the spot execution of guerillas that were captured by Confederate forces, something that was apparently starting to occur.
The irony of this is to thick not to notice. Pickett had been a serving Federal officer when the Civil War broke out and, like the North Carolina militiamen he hung, had chosen for the other side. The only real difference is that the North Carolinians had opted for the Union when faced with Confederate conscription whereas he's opted to rebel. If he wasn't deserving of hanging, they were not either.
Faced with probable prosecution, Pickett fled to Canada but soon benefited from the intercession of an old Army friend, U.S. Grant. He returned to the U.S. and was pardoned by act of Congress in 1874, a year prior to his death in 1875 at age 50.
Pickett provides a good example of somebody whom the Army should not have honored by naming a fort after him and also of the attitudes of the majority of whites following teh war. Connections allowed him to escape conviction and receive forgiveness in spite of his actions, where as black citizens, as they now were, were not to receive, ultimately, the sort of systemic assistance that they required to establish their place in the country.
Ft. Polk, Louisiana
Ft. Polk was established as Camp Polk in 1941, making it part of the World War Two collection of posts in this article. It was a major training post during the war, but following the war it was closed and reopened repeatedly, sometimes serving as a reserve training facility.
It achieved permanent fort status in 1955, which hasn't saved it from continually being on the edge of closure.
Ft. Polk was named after Confederate general, the Right Reverend Leonidas Polk. Polk was a planter and the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana prior to the Civil War. He resigned his ecclesiastical position to take up the sword during the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War he was a major slaveholder. He was killed by Union artillery in June, 1864.
Polk is another example of the mystery of the naming conventions in this period. He was a poor commander and unlike Lee or Pickett he had no pre war association with the U.S. Army. He was a major slaveholder and his associations in life, including his role as Episcopal Bishop while still retaining his fellow human beings in bondage, and then resigning his clerical role for a military one, make him a poor example of any kind.
Ft. Rucker, Alabama
Ft. Rucker was opened during World War Two in 1942 as Camp Rucker. It was closed at the end of the war but reopened during the Korean War and made a fort in 1955.
The post was named after Col. Edmund Rucker, an Alabama Confederate officer who became an industrial leader in Alabama after the war. Rucker was thought fairly high of by his immediate commander as after he was wounded, losing an arm, and captured, that commander, Nathan Bedford Forrest, arranged a prisoner exchange for him. After his recovery, he returned to a Confederate command.
Rucker is somewhat unusual in this collection as he was not a career soldier, although as noted some of the others on this list were not either, and he wasn't technically a general, although he was breveted to that rank, much like George Custer, during the war. He seems to have come to mind as he was a very successful post Civil War businessman in Alabama.
Pondering those Confederate names
So what of these bases?
I've heard of all of these bases save for one which I somehow wasn't aware of and I wasn't going to comment on it directly, but I will be frank that from a northern and western perspective, naming Army installations after men who were traitors to their country just seems flat out bizarre. Naming a post after somebody who was associated with the KKK is flat out inexcusable. And the whole thing is a bit hard to figure. Until I saw the list, I didn't realize that there were ten, which is a lot. I didn't know about Beauregard and Pickett having posts named after them at all and I'd not realized that Ft. Gordon, Ft. Polk and Ft. Rucker were named after Confederate generals, although I should have.
I also would not have guessed that five or six, depending upon how you reckon it, of these posts were given the names of Confederate figures during World War Two. Perhaps because I was aware of the use of Confederate figures for camps in the South during World War One, and perhaps because I associate the Lost Cause Era with the 1910s, I would have guessed that they were mostly named during World War One. I was wrong on that.
Indeed, as the purpose of this blog is to learn, what we've learned from that is that the Lost Cause era went on for a lot longer than I would have guessed. But perhaps I should have known better. We covered Spiro Agnew going to Battle Mountain's dedication in 1970 just the other day, and while doing this I was informed that the Confederate unknown soldiers tomb was established in 1980.
I did know that all of these came about during the 1916 to 1942 time frame, and that they fit into the same period in which monuments to Southern generals were going up all over the South, even if I erroneously contracted the time period they went up overall (I probably should have run the era from about 1900 to 1980, rather than concentrate on the 1910s). That period was the heyday of the "Lost Cause" movement that glorified the Southern cause, omitting that it was about slavery, and for which the bookends could perhaps be seen as the movies Birth Of A Nation (nasty racist trash) and Gone With The Wind (well filmed technicolor whitewashing).
It frankly baffles me a bit that the Army remained so concerned about drawing in Southern troops, if that's what it was really concerned about, that it started this practice in World War One, particularly as so many Southerners (black and white) had enlisted to fight in the Spanish American War, which is further baffling in light of the fact that the government resorted to the draft during the Great War, so the concern seems unwarranted, but then I guess I wasn't around doing the worrying at the time so perhaps I'm missing something.
If I am, I'm really missing it in regard to World War Two, by which time it was abundantly clear that the Army was having no trouble at all recruiting Southern men to the service and during which, moreover, the Amy eventually went completely over to conscription and quit taking volunteers as it was more efficient. Given that, the names assigned during the Second World War really have to be regarded as part of the Army culture at the time.
Indeed, we might note on that culture that the Army's officer corps always had a strong Southern make up. That was the case prior to the Civil War and caused problems in the ranks during the Mexican War when large numbers of German and Irish immigrants, whom Southern officers generally despised, joined for the duration of the war. Things became so bad that it inspired the only really large defection of US troops to an enemy as Irish soldiers in some numbers left the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican Army. And that helps explain why so many officers were simply allowed to leave the service at the start of the Civil War and go freely into treason. The brotherly nature of the officer corps allowed for it, and there were a lot of Southerners in that corps.* In spite of post war fears, Southerners continued to join the Army in numbers greater than Northerners after the Civil War and this was still the case at least as late as the Vietnam War, if not later.
I get why blacks. . .and white Northerners, may remain offended by those names and might want them changed. Having said that, I also get President Trump's point that by now more Americans may associate those post names with the Second World War than they do with the Civil War, so it may be a bit late to change some of them now. Having said that, the association of some of these individuals with hardcore racism or, in Pickett's case, with a war crime are so strong that at least in some cases something should be done. Indeed, in the list of names a person might wish to now preserve on post titles, the ones where the post name now overshadows the original person the name honored is small, and when you look at those examples, at least one of them is extremely problematic.
So, now that the Army is looking at it, perhaps all the names should go.
When I first thought of this post I guessed, apparently inaccurately, that some southern states may have National Guard posts named after Confederate figures as well. Anyhow, that then caused me to ponder how the US has named its military installations, in general, in the past, which lead me to thinking about military installations locally, and who they were named after. We all know the well-known posts, but rarely the lesser known Guard and smaller military installations. Given that, as it might be interesting, I’ll list them for my state, Wyoming. I’ll break them down into a couple of different categories.
So what are those posts?
The Confederate Named Posts.
The actual installations are:
Camp Beauregard (Louisiana National Guard)
Camp Beauregard, 1941.
The post is named after P.G.T. Beauregard who was a career Army officer who fought in the Mexican War but who resigned to join the Confederate forces at the start of the Civil War. A native Louisiana, he held mixed views that make him stand somewhat apart from most Confederate figures, something that tended to be more common with Louisianans as it reflected their Catholic background. His family had owned slaves itself and he was a post war opponent of Reconstruction in the South, even as, at the same time, he went on record on more than one occasion urging white Southerners to accept full equality for blacks and he urged black land ownership, something we also have a post on.
The choice of the name of this post reflects that Beauregard was a Louisianan. Renaming this post might be something that even those urging renaming might reconsider, as Beauregard was not only a rebel against his country, which he was, but he was one that rethought white Southern positions on the equality of blacks, which he urged be accepted after the war when it would not have been a popular thing to do. He moved on rapidly after the war to look very far forward towards a new Louisiana, and was even the subject of a memorial poem by black Creole Victor Rillieux upon his death.
Ft. Benning, Georgia
Ft. Benning is a massive U.S. Army installation in Georgia which is home to the Army's Infantry and Armor schools. It was established as Camp Benning in October, 1918, making it a post established at the tail end of the First World War, and was converted to permanent status in 1920. It's been a major U.S. Army installation ever since.
Benning was named for Confederate general Henry L. Benning. Benning was a lawyer from Columbus, Georgia, and therefore different from some of the other Southern figures that have posts named after him in that he had no service in the U.S. Army at all. He was an ardent and radical proponent of slavery and proposed a Southern system designed to permanently institutionalize it out of the fear that the arch of history would start to eliminate it in the northern most Southern states. As a Justice in the Georgia Supreme Court he was of the view that the court was free to ignore decisions made by the United States Supreme Court. He joined the Confederate service during the war, survived it, and returned to the practice of law following it, at which time he was essentially financially ruined by the war. He died in 1875 of a stroke.
Henry Benning provides a really good example of why some would like to rename these posts. It's baffling why a post was named after him in the first place and it seems to be simply because he was a Southern Civil War figure from Georgia. There's very little to admire about Benning personally in that he was such a dedicated proponent of slavery and succession that his views were radically in that direction even for Southerners.
Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.
U.S. Airborne troops training at Ft. Bragg very early in World War Two. The howitzer is the 75mm pack howitzer that had been developed for pack artillery between the wars and which was used by airborne troops, as well as others, during it. The soldiers in this photograph are completely lacking the unique uniforms associated with the airborne and are still wearing M1917 helmets, although they are equipped with the new M1 Carbine.
Ft. Bragg is currently the most populous military installation in the world with 50,000 residents. It started its existence in 1918 as an artillery training center and was converted to a permanent installation in 1922. During World War Two it became associated with the airborne and it remains associated with them and special warfare units today.
Ft. Bragg was named after Braxton Bragg, who had served as a U.S. Army officer in the Second Seminole War and the Mexican War before leaving the Army in 1856 to purchase a sugar plantation in Louisiana. He was, accordingly, a slave holder and the Southern born Bragg had never been known to oppose slavery. His long service in the Army resulted in a military sense of discipline over his slaves which in turn resulted in the quick profitability of the plantation. Pretty clearly, therefore, he had a vested interest in slavery.
Bragg's reputation as a commander hasn't held up well post war, a war which he survived. He relied upon frontal assaults which, contrary to the widespread movie fed belief, were already past their military prime after the early stages of the war.. He lost his plantation due to the war and died in 1876 of a stroke, at age 59, in Texas.
Bragg's poor reputation as a Civil War commander has caused some to wonder, on this topic, why any post was ever named after him. Oddly enough, it was the second time a fort was named for Braxton Bragg, however, as a military post in northern California was named that upon being established in 1857. In that instance the field commander at the location named the post after his former Mexican War commander, Braxton Bragg, who at that time had no association with the Confederacy as the naming predated it. In 2015, prior to current events, there was a petition to rename the town given Bragg's later association with the armed effort to keep men enslaved in the South.
Bragg points out the problem with renaming posts. The post has become so closely associated with the Airborne that mentioning it is more likely to bring to mind the Airborne of World War Two, or the Special Forces of the Cold War, than it is to bring to mind Braxton Bragg.
Ft. Gordon, Georgia.
The 82nd Division honoring the widow of John Brown Gordon at the first Camp Gordon.
The first Camp Gordon was one of the many World War One training camps established as part of the effort to train troops for the Great War. It was the training camp for the 82nd Division, one of the divisions made up of conscripts during the war, with that division being given the name the "All American" division, as its men were drawn from across the country. Having said that, half of those men were from Georgia and of course additional men were from Southern states, such as the units most famous Great War soldier, Alvin York of Tennessee. The Camp was disbanded in 1921 and the real estate sold.
Black soldiers at the original Camp Gordon in 1917. These troops are being read to by one of tehir members due to the illiteracy of the listening soldiers. What would serving at a camp named for Gordon have been like for these troops?
When the Second World War created a demand for training camps once again, a second Camp Gordon was established in Georgia in a different location. It seems to have been named Camp Gordon as the first Georgia Camp Gordon was named that. The second Camp Gordon achieved permanent fort status in 1956. The Army's important cyber school is located there today.
The first one, and hence the second one, were named after Confederate General John Brown Gordon. Gordon was a Georgia lawyer and planter, although he was not a large slave owner. In the 1860 census he reported owning a single slave, a 14 year old girl, while his father owned a further four. He rose high in Confederate ranks during the war and was highly regarded by Robert E. Lee. Following the war he had an extremely successful career in politics serving in the United States Senate and as the Governor of Georgia.
He is also believed to have been the titular head of the Klu Klux Klan in Georgia, a charge he denied, although he admitted to be part of a secret "peace police" organization. The KKK records and organization was so secretive at the time that it's proven impossible to prove the charge.
Gordon provides an example of the sort of person the Army shouldn't have honored with a camp name, and beyond that, the bizarre nature of post Civil War American politics in that he actually served as the Presiden to the United States Senate at one time, the first post Civil War Southerner to do so. If he'd clearly had a change of heart regarding the rebellion and slavery that would be one thing, but clearly, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Given that, and given that this fort doesn't have a strong connection with post World War One history the way that some other Army posts do, renaming this post doesn't involve the considerations that renaming the others might.
Ft. Hood
Latrine basin at Camp Hood, Texas, in 1943.
Fort Hood stands out in this list as it was established in 1942, during World War Two, and therefore comes a good generation after the Lost Cause naming of most of the other installations in this list. Having said that, by 1942 the Lost Cause version of the South was highly established and even widely accepted in some circles, having just been celebrated in the film Gone With The Wind. It's one of the largest military installations in the world.
The post was named for Confederate general John Bell Hood, a West Point graduate who entered the U.S. Army in the late 1850s. A Kentuckian who has served with the U.S. Army in Texas, he resigned from the Army after the start of the Civil War and ended up joining the Confederate forces in Texas as he was upset that his native Kentucky had not declared for the Confederacy. He was an outright racist. A young man during the war, he married after the war and worked as an insurance company representative. He fathered eleven children with his wife and died of the yellow fever in 1879 at age 48. The same epidemic that killed him, and one of his daughters, destroyed his companies finances and his family was supported by a Texas veterans organization for the following twenty years.
Hood was the youngest individual to be given command of an army during the Civil War which is likely why he came to mind when Camp Hood was named, combined with his association with Texas. He wasn't a Texan and lived after the war in New Orleans. It's curious that as late as 1942, with many examples of heroism having been provided by the recently fought World War One, that the Army was still naming posts after Civil War generals, let alone Confederate civil war generals.
Ft. A.P. Hill
Fort A. P. Hill is a training range in Kentucky. This is a post that I frankly haven't heard of. Like Benning, this post was established in the 1940s, with this one being established in 1941, just prior to the war. It was named after Virginia native and Confederate general Ambrose Powell Hill. Hill was a West Point graduate who had a cavalry command that did not see action during the Mexican War, after which he transferred to the Coastal Artillery. He resigned his commission just prior to the Civil War and joined the Confederate forces when the war commenced.
Hill was very well liked by the men under his command and most fellow officers. His career was hampered by constant ill health due to the effects of gonorrhea contracted while he was at West Point. He was not a great commander and is sometimes cited as an example of the Peter Principle at work in a military command. Unlike some of the other Confederate figures here he's not personally associated with ardent racism and seems to have gone with the South simply because he was a Virginian. Having said that, he was vocal about not wanting to live in a defeated South and got his wish when he was shot dead by a Union officer when he was attempting to quixotically demand the Union troops surrender. This came just seven days prior to the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and therefore at a time at which the South had obviously lost the war.
Hill likely would not be a candidate for the naming of a post today even if he were a Union officer.
Ft. Lee, Virginia.
The United State's Navy's Camp Lee, Virginia, in 1911. This Camp Lee predates the Army's.
This post was established in 1917 as Camp Lee in 1917 and rapidly expanded in size. Oddly enough the name had already been used by the Navy, which is surprising. It was disestablished in 1920 and then reestablished in 1940. It became Ft. Lee in 1950 when it became a training location for the Quartermaster Corps.
The fort is named for Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee is probably the most beloved of the Confederate generals but his reputation ignores that he was a slave owner who had a long career in the U.S. Army prior to the war and who was offered command of the Army by Lincoln but resigned rather than fight in a war against Virginians, only to join the rebellion and fight against the nation he'd sworn a loyalty oath to in the first place. He was a good an effective general but his conscience was obvious pretty elastic towards some very serious matters.
If a person is inclined to want to change the names of these posts this is one that, interestingly enough, might be capable of being salvaged as there have been a number of well known U.S. officers by that name. Charles Lee was a Continental Major General during the Revolution. "Light Horse" Henry Lee also served during the Revolution and again during the Whiskey Rebellion, putting the father of Robert E. Lee, as he was, in the ironic position of commanding the suppression of an earlier rebellion. William C. Lee was a Major General during World War Two and was the commander of the 101st Airborne. John H.C. Lee was a Lieutenant General who was in charge of logistics in the ETO during World War Two. Indeed, John H.C. Lee, while a controversial figure, probably makes more sense than Robert E. Lee in terms of a naming influence for an ordinance post, and William C. Lee, the "father of the airborne", would be a good choice for an updated naming.
Ft. Pickett (Virginia National Guard)
Ft. Pickett is obviously named after Confederate General George Pickett of Pickett's Charge fame.
Ft. Pickett was established as Camp Pickett in 1941 as part of the build up during World War Two. It had been a Civilian Conservation Corps camp prior to that, although not with Pickett's name. The post has an odd history in that following World War Two it was basically disestablished and then reestablished to support Operation Portex, a large war game, that was staged in 1950, just prior to the Korean War. After that the camp remained being used and was transferred as a military establishment to the National Guard, although it received heavy use from other reserve and active components. In 1960 the post was converted for Guard and Reserve training cycles and then it achieved permanent fort status in 1974.
The use of Gen. Pickett's name for this post seems to follow on the naming customs that were adopted during World War One as the government chose Pickett's name because this was a Southern post. In doing this, it named the post after another example of a Southern born regular Army officer who had resigned his commission to join the Confederate forces. In his case, this involved considerable effort as he was stationed at the time on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington State, where he had been involved in the armed standoff of the Pig War a year prior. After a lengthy sea voyage, he joined the Confederate army.
Pickett's service is subject to some mixed reviews as to how good of an officer he was. Obviously fondly recalled by Southerners because of his doomed charge at Gettysburg, he is not uniformly regarded as a great commander. He did have a measure of wit, however, as he was noted to have commented after the war, when asked about why the doomed charge had failed, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it". On another occasion, that being a post war gathering of former officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, he'd turned to a companion and blamed Lee for the horrific loss, which is something that Lee deserved, noting that "That's the man who lost my division".
While Pickett is recalled principally for that charge today, he himself feared he'd be recalled by the United States for ordering the execution of 22 Union soldiers at New Bern, North Carolina in 1864. Those soldiers had in some instances served previously in Confederate home guard units, i.e., state militia. For that matter, prior to this, Pickett had been issuing aggressive orders about the on the spot execution of guerillas that were captured by Confederate forces, something that was apparently starting to occur.
The irony of this is to thick not to notice. Pickett had been a serving Federal officer when the Civil War broke out and, like the North Carolina militiamen he hung, had chosen for the other side. The only real difference is that the North Carolinians had opted for the Union when faced with Confederate conscription whereas he's opted to rebel. If he wasn't deserving of hanging, they were not either.
Faced with probable prosecution, Pickett fled to Canada but soon benefited from the intercession of an old Army friend, U.S. Grant. He returned to the U.S. and was pardoned by act of Congress in 1874, a year prior to his death in 1875 at age 50.
Pickett provides a good example of somebody whom the Army should not have honored by naming a fort after him and also of the attitudes of the majority of whites following teh war. Connections allowed him to escape conviction and receive forgiveness in spite of his actions, where as black citizens, as they now were, were not to receive, ultimately, the sort of systemic assistance that they required to establish their place in the country.
Ft. Polk, Louisiana
Ft. Polk was established as Camp Polk in 1941, making it part of the World War Two collection of posts in this article. It was a major training post during the war, but following the war it was closed and reopened repeatedly, sometimes serving as a reserve training facility.
It achieved permanent fort status in 1955, which hasn't saved it from continually being on the edge of closure.
Ft. Polk was named after Confederate general, the Right Reverend Leonidas Polk. Polk was a planter and the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana prior to the Civil War. He resigned his ecclesiastical position to take up the sword during the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War he was a major slaveholder. He was killed by Union artillery in June, 1864.
Polk is another example of the mystery of the naming conventions in this period. He was a poor commander and unlike Lee or Pickett he had no pre war association with the U.S. Army. He was a major slaveholder and his associations in life, including his role as Episcopal Bishop while still retaining his fellow human beings in bondage, and then resigning his clerical role for a military one, make him a poor example of any kind.
Ft. Rucker, Alabama
Ft. Rucker was opened during World War Two in 1942 as Camp Rucker. It was closed at the end of the war but reopened during the Korean War and made a fort in 1955.
The post was named after Col. Edmund Rucker, an Alabama Confederate officer who became an industrial leader in Alabama after the war. Rucker was thought fairly high of by his immediate commander as after he was wounded, losing an arm, and captured, that commander, Nathan Bedford Forrest, arranged a prisoner exchange for him. After his recovery, he returned to a Confederate command.
Rucker is somewhat unusual in this collection as he was not a career soldier, although as noted some of the others on this list were not either, and he wasn't technically a general, although he was breveted to that rank, much like George Custer, during the war. He seems to have come to mind as he was a very successful post Civil War businessman in Alabama.
Pondering those Confederate names
So what of these bases?
I've heard of all of these bases save for one which I somehow wasn't aware of and I wasn't going to comment on it directly, but I will be frank that from a northern and western perspective, naming Army installations after men who were traitors to their country just seems flat out bizarre. Naming a post after somebody who was associated with the KKK is flat out inexcusable. And the whole thing is a bit hard to figure. Until I saw the list, I didn't realize that there were ten, which is a lot. I didn't know about Beauregard and Pickett having posts named after them at all and I'd not realized that Ft. Gordon, Ft. Polk and Ft. Rucker were named after Confederate generals, although I should have.
We noted just the other day that this film, which is a brilliant film and also a piece of Lost Cause apologetics, was made in 1939 but we failed to note that it was released on January 17, 1940. This film, as brilliant as it is, definitely has racist elements and unashamedly glorifies the Southern cause in the war, showing how late the Lost Cause Era really lasted.
I also would not have guessed that five or six, depending upon how you reckon it, of these posts were given the names of Confederate figures during World War Two. Perhaps because I was aware of the use of Confederate figures for camps in the South during World War One, and perhaps because I associate the Lost Cause Era with the 1910s, I would have guessed that they were mostly named during World War One. I was wrong on that.
Indeed, as the purpose of this blog is to learn, what we've learned from that is that the Lost Cause era went on for a lot longer than I would have guessed. But perhaps I should have known better. We covered Spiro Agnew going to Battle Mountain's dedication in 1970 just the other day, and while doing this I was informed that the Confederate unknown soldiers tomb was established in 1980.
I did know that all of these came about during the 1916 to 1942 time frame, and that they fit into the same period in which monuments to Southern generals were going up all over the South, even if I erroneously contracted the time period they went up overall (I probably should have run the era from about 1900 to 1980, rather than concentrate on the 1910s). That period was the heyday of the "Lost Cause" movement that glorified the Southern cause, omitting that it was about slavery, and for which the bookends could perhaps be seen as the movies Birth Of A Nation (nasty racist trash) and Gone With The Wind (well filmed technicolor whitewashing).
It frankly baffles me a bit that the Army remained so concerned about drawing in Southern troops, if that's what it was really concerned about, that it started this practice in World War One, particularly as so many Southerners (black and white) had enlisted to fight in the Spanish American War, which is further baffling in light of the fact that the government resorted to the draft during the Great War, so the concern seems unwarranted, but then I guess I wasn't around doing the worrying at the time so perhaps I'm missing something.
If I am, I'm really missing it in regard to World War Two, by which time it was abundantly clear that the Army was having no trouble at all recruiting Southern men to the service and during which, moreover, the Amy eventually went completely over to conscription and quit taking volunteers as it was more efficient. Given that, the names assigned during the Second World War really have to be regarded as part of the Army culture at the time.
Indeed, we might note on that culture that the Army's officer corps always had a strong Southern make up. That was the case prior to the Civil War and caused problems in the ranks during the Mexican War when large numbers of German and Irish immigrants, whom Southern officers generally despised, joined for the duration of the war. Things became so bad that it inspired the only really large defection of US troops to an enemy as Irish soldiers in some numbers left the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican Army. And that helps explain why so many officers were simply allowed to leave the service at the start of the Civil War and go freely into treason. The brotherly nature of the officer corps allowed for it, and there were a lot of Southerners in that corps.* In spite of post war fears, Southerners continued to join the Army in numbers greater than Northerners after the Civil War and this was still the case at least as late as the Vietnam War, if not later.
I get why blacks. . .and white Northerners, may remain offended by those names and might want them changed. Having said that, I also get President Trump's point that by now more Americans may associate those post names with the Second World War than they do with the Civil War, so it may be a bit late to change some of them now. Having said that, the association of some of these individuals with hardcore racism or, in Pickett's case, with a war crime are so strong that at least in some cases something should be done. Indeed, in the list of names a person might wish to now preserve on post titles, the ones where the post name now overshadows the original person the name honored is small, and when you look at those examples, at least one of them is extremely problematic.
So, now that the Army is looking at it, perhaps all the names should go.
When I first thought of this post I guessed, apparently inaccurately, that some southern states may have National Guard posts named after Confederate figures as well. Anyhow, that then caused me to ponder how the US has named its military installations, in general, in the past, which lead me to thinking about military installations locally, and who they were named after. We all know the well-known posts, but rarely the lesser known Guard and smaller military installations. Given that, as it might be interesting, I’ll list them for my state, Wyoming. I’ll break them down into a couple of different categories.
Part of the reason that I thought this might be interesting, and I hope others follow, is that it helps illustrate what posts were named at various times and why. So we'll get to Wyoming next.
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*Of interest, very few artillerymen, which required some mathematical knowledge, were Southerners prior to the war and, of those who were, most stayed in the Union Army. The Confederate artillery was, accordingly, always bad.
