Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. Heres why theyre named after traitors. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, a black soldier who received a Silver Star after pulling six wounded soldiers out of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in 2005 in Iraq. And we cant do that if we have a paywall. And its worth noting that after the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, debate about changing the 10 facilities names started up again, though the Pentagon did little about it. The ceremony to rededicate the base to Lt. Gen. Harold "Hal" G. Moore Jr. and Julia "Julie" Moore was held at the Doughboy Stadium near Columbus, Georgia. Thats why, even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. Most I spoke with said Army leadership should put down multiple names on a list say, 100 and then put together a commission of experts to pick the best 10. More to the point, he was a virulent white supremacist who issued incendiary warnings about the so-called dangers of having free black men outnumbering white men and threatening the purity of lily-white womanhood.". And in an era of protests against Confederate statues and monuments in cities and towns across the South, the U.S. Army has faced almost no resistance to its steadfast determination to keep those names in place. Regarding Mary Benning, Ms. Mitchell wrote, "She was a tiny woman, frail and slight, but possessed of unusual endurance and a lions heart. This interchange is also reported in Freeman, Vol. And now, the AJC's Jeremy Redmon reports, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are said to be open to holding a "bipartisan conversation" about renaming nearly a dozen major bases and installations that bear the names ofConfederate military commanders. Why are Army bases named after Confederates? - The Washington Post Buoyed byprotests over the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police, support for removing Confederate monuments and street names has increased. It later became Fort Benning. Five Benning daughters (Mary Howard, Augusta Jones, Louisa Vivian, Anna Caroline, and Sarah Jones) survived their parents. Stuart Hodes looks back on his first job after flying in World War II -- a lifelong career as a dancer and choreographer. And individuals are difficult to separate from their ideologies. The bases, all in former Confederate states, were named with input from locals in the Jim Crow era. 10 Army Bases Named After Confederate Officers | Military.com Camp Polk was opened in 1941, and Fort Polk is now home to the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center. Its important that we have several ways we make money, just like its important for you to have a diversified retirement portfolio to weather the ups and downs of the stock market. He led Pickett's Charge on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg and fled to Canada at the end of the war. The rally turned deadly when a white supremacist deliberately plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Longstreet's reply humiliated Benning but instilled enough determination in him to return to find his brigade and prevail in the battle.[6]. Editorial: Climate change is roasting L.A. Copyright 2023 Military.com. [4], For most of the rest of the war, Benning continued as a brigade commander ("Benning's Brigade") in the division of the aggressive John Bell Hood of Texas. The military officials in charge of naming the posts, including Brig. Protests in Minneapolis and nationwide following George Floyds death, A damning new DOJ report accuses the Minneapolis Police Department of civil rights abuses, George Floyd was remembered by family, activists, and politicians at his funeral in Houston, Hollywoods impending, historic double strike, explained. Lets start with the first point. They were deliberately chosen to appease racist people, particularly in the South not to achieve some kind of national reconciliation.. And Fort Hood, Texas, was renamed Fort Cavazos on Tuesday. Hill was promoted to lieutenant general after his mentor Stonewall Jackson was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville. The base was named after General Henry Benning, who . In a speech in Virginia in early 1861, Benning revealed in unflinching terms his belief that secession was the only way to save slavery in the South. Fort Bragg is named after Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general and West Point graduate who was born in Warrenton, North Carolina. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Lt. Gen. John Brown Gordon was a Georgia native who had zero military experience before the war. Legal Statement. Lee. When I was a cadet at West Point in the early 1970s, enthusiasm for Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson was widespread, Petraeus wrote. This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. Henry's firstborn son, Seaborn Jones Benning, died of consumption on December 12, 1874. Beauregard and his commanding officer, Gen. Joseph Johnston, were the military leaders who convinced President Jefferson Davis that the war was lost. Theres also Ft. Which raises the question: Why has it taken so long for the Army to even consider changing these bases names? June 10, 2020 at 5:17 p.m. EDT Fort Benning in Georgia is named after a Confederate general. Why is the Army Still Honoring Confederate Generals? Most of those areas were in the South. If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. According to theNew Georgia Encyclopedia: Benning"was one of Georgia's delegates to a convention of nine slaveholding states, held in Nashville, Tennessee, to determine the Southern course of action if slavery were banned in the western territories. By naming places, not people, the military can better exemplify its values of honor, sacrifice, and community, he wrote in the New York Times last month. Defense officials declined to comment on plans for the installation names after Trumps remarks. In February, the Marines signaled that Confederate-related items including the Confederate battle flag would no longer be permitted on its bases and officially followed through last week. Second, were not in the subscriptions business. Each week, we explore unique solutions to some of the world's biggest problems. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom, Trump said, adding that the administration will not even consider renaming them. Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the headquarters of the Special Forces, bears the name of Gen. Braxton Bragg, a commander often assailed as one of the most bumbling commanders in the war. Fifteen years later, a young African-American Army officer named Colin Powell marveled at the contrast between the fairness and opportunity he experienced at Fort Benning, Ga., and the racist . Oops. Fort Bragg; Fort A.P. Bases that continue to bear the names of Confederate soldiers and officers persons who wrongly fought to protect the institution of slavery and would have denied black Americans from serving in the military are a reminder of that systemic oppression we continue to confront and damages the culture of inclusivity needed to accomplish the mission, Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD), a retired Army colonel and vice-chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told me. Either protesters dont realize who the bases are named for, or they are unwilling to confront such big, powerful targets. In remarks in 1861 laying out slavery as the reason for secession, Benning warned that abolition would lead to black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Later this year in Georgia, Fort Gordon outside Augusta will be renamed for former President Dwight Eisenhower, who served as a five-star Army general. That September, Longstreet's Corps was sent west to assist General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. Hood in Texas, named after Gen. John Bell Hood. His writing has been published in the New Republic, New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Nation, Sunday Times of London and Washington Monthly, among other places. [8] Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore, after Lieutenant General Harold Gregory Moore, Jr. and his wife, Julia as of May 11, 2023. A congressionally appointed commission is now overseeing the renaming process and must report back by October 2022. And while the West Point campus features a gate, barracks, and a statute all dedicated to Lee, the academy only got a statue of Union General (and later US president) Ulysses S. Grant a West Point alum last year. Please give me orders where I can do some fighting." By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Others will soon follow. Fort Benning and Fort Gordon to be renamed - The Atlanta Journal The Army has renamed Georgia's Fort Benning to Fort Moore, commemorating late Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, a Vietnam War commander. "It was the great political factor around which the passions of the sections had long been gathered -- the tallest pine in the political forest around whose top the fiercest lightnings were to blaze and whose trunk was destined to be shivered in the earthquake shocks of war.". After Pickett's death in 1875, his widow, LaSalle, spent the rest of her life promoting her husband's role in the war by lecturing and publishing three books on his career. Questions about the base names have occasionally been raised with the Army. June 12, 2020, 12:11 PM 1:28 National headlines from ABC News Catch up on the developing stories making headlines. In return, the Republicans agreed that they would remove federal troops from Southern states, effectively ending Reconstruction. As a widower, Henry Benning suffered a stroke and died on July 10, 1875. Henry L. Benning - New Georgia Encyclopedia Fort Lee was, of course . We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and List of U.S. Army installations named for Confederate soldiers The League of United Latin American Citizens, an advocacy group, urged the Army last year to rename Fort Hood for him. During the 1980s, professors taught him and his peers one of his classmates was current Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville about the Lost Cause: the collection of historical myths meant to whitewash the hard truths of slavery and the Civil War, as historian William R. Black has defined it. During a surprise Union counterattack against his brigade, many of his men fled, and Benning ran off to Longstreet to report the calamity. Cashe entered the Bradley three times to rescue six soldiers while he himself was on fire. Henry Benning was from Georgia. Benning graduated from the University of Georgia in 1834 and then studied law. He once had two horses shot out from under him in battle. The regiment became part of Robert Toombs's brigade in the right wing of the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E. In the early days after the war, Beauregard displayed the same antipathy toward freed slaves that most of his fellow Confederate leaders embraced for their entire lives, but he'd had a change of heart by 1873. After the war, Forrest became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and also went into business with Rucker in a railroad-building project, according to a recent biography of Rucker. Plenty of people have rightly demanded that those names be removed and last year, Congress voted to do so. Thats because the Army honors Benning above almost any other military officer in American history. Henry Lewis Benning (April 2, 1814 July 10, 1875) was a general in the Confederate States Army. Brig. The base was previously named after Confederate Brigadier Gen. Henry L . He previously served 11 years as editor of the editorial page and was also a former editor of the Op-Ed page and the Sunday Opinion section. We were not encouraged to think deeply about the cause for which they had fought, at least not in our military history classes. When the Army wrote back, Diana Randon, who was at the time the services top official on these issues, said the two men were an inextricable part of our military history. Such a move would be controversial and divisive, she continued, and contrary to the Nations original intent in naming these streets, which was the spirit of reconciliation., Of course, as discussed above, that is a blatant misrepresentation of why these individuals names were chosen. A movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries known as "The Lost Cause" sought to defend the motivations of the Confederacy, obscure the role of slavery and drape these men in romance and devotion to homeland. The GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment for the Pentagon to strip the names from the installations within three years, CNN reported Thursday. In May, the New York Times editorial board wrote a scathing piece arguing the military celebrated white supremacy, in part because of the 10 installations names. Its also not clear whether the Pentagon will continue to resist any change. [1][2] In a letter to Howell Cobb written in July 1849, he stated that a Southern Confederacy would not be enough because it might itself eventually become divided into northern and southern regions as slavery waned in some of the states, and he called for a Southern "consolidated Republic" that "will put slavery under the control of those most interested in it. Yet the base names were products of the same reassertion of Southern white supremacy that prompted the erection of many Confederate statues and monuments. Fort Pickett in Virginia became Fort Barfoot in March. Since the skirmish over the street names at Fort Hamilton died down, the Confederate names of Army bases have received little public attention despite a surge in white supremacist violence this year, including the mass shooting in El Paso in August. President Trump said on Twitter he was against a growing effort to rename Army installations bearing names of Confederate commanders, two days after Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper signaled he was open to the idea. Joe figure and, in a nod to his passion for education, several Texas schools. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Local veteran reacts to renaming of Ft. Benning - WTVM News Leader 9 Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Beauregard was trained at West Point and. NAVY RENAMES SHIP OVER TIES TO CONFEDERATE OFFICER. As the nation mobilized for both world wars, political leaders amended Jim Crow-era laws to allow more minority troops into the militarys ranks. The post commander, Maj. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, welcomed attendees for the first time to Fort Moore, named in honor of the late Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Moore. He questioned the legality of the Confederate government's Conscription Act and spoke against it openly as a violation of states' rights. "[3], In 1851, he was nominated for the U.S. Congress as a Southern rights Democrat but was not elected. Printer ink is a scam. Located just outside Columbus, the Georgia base trains soldiers to fight in the infantry, to serve in tank crews and is home to the elite Army Ranger School. The Pentagons official history of racial integration in the armed forces concluded that, with varying degrees of success, such changes actually spread federally sponsored segregation into areas where it had never before existed with the force of law.. The film Birth of a Nation, a virulently racist glorification of Ku Klux Klan vigilantes, was released in 1915. Calls to rename the bases occurred sporadically during the 2010s. You can also contribute via. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. According to Nina Silber, history professor at Boston University, the Roosevelt administration named them after Confederate officers to court Southern votes and secure the support of Southern Democrats for the war. In the wake of news that the Marine Corps is banning Confederate paraphernalia from its installations, the Army says it does not plan to rename its bases and facilities that were long ago . As we consider the implications of recognizing historical figures by naming military bases after them, maybe it's time we really look at what these men said and did before, during and after the Civil War. Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com, As Confederate statues topple, groups target Decatur's monument, Pentagon open to talks about renaming bases honoring Confederate figures, Photos: Confederate memorials in metro Atlanta, DOJ to probe Fulton County Jail after death of mentally ill inmate, Family involved in fatal wreck after leaving North Georgia water park, Clear standard line moves to ATL airport lower level to avoid congestion, Georgia cuts 95,000 from Medicaid, more coming, Atlanta Brewing Company will no longer open at Underground Atlanta, Clayton County authority lifts boil water advisory, National Book Club Conference brings Black women, books together, Atlanta wants to build affordable social housing on public land, Christopher Eubanks sets record despite loss at Wimbledon, Aflac takes over title sponsorship of football Kickoff game in Atlanta, Actors about to join writers on strike: what this means for Georgia. Gordon was elected to the US Senate in 1872, but he was also widely known as the head of Georgias chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (a charge he, as leaders of the organization often do, denied). It is home to the U.S. Army Infantry School and is located near Columbus, Georgia. Hill and Gordon, dotted across the American South. Benning was active in Southern U.S. politics and an ardent secessionist, bitterly opposing abolition and the emancipation of slaves. Which military bases are named after Confederate Generals? The first significant action he saw was at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. While in retrospect there should have been, there simply wasnt the national level of discourse we see today that often leads to those kinds of decisions.. This article was published more than3 years ago. Two decades later, as the U.S. entered World War II, it again needed bases; thats when Fts. On Monday, Army spokesperson Col. Sunset Belinsky told Politico that The secretary of defense and secretary of the Army are open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic., Thats opened the door for the Army to reverse its long-held position on keeping the names honoring Confederate officers. Remember, this wasnt Mississippi or Alabama honoring Confederate officers this was the United States of America. Thats why all 10 facilities named after those men are in the South: three in Virginia, two in Louisiana, two in Georgia, and one each in Alabama, North Carolina, and Texas. Please enter a valid email and try again. Ft. Benning in Georgia, for instance, was named after Confederate Gen. Henry L. Benning because the U.S. secretary of War accepted the recommendation of the local chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Rotary Club. New documents show a scientist calling a lab leak highly likely after drafting a paper claiming the opposite. Ten Army installations in the United States were named after senior Confederate commanders who fought against U.S. troops during the Civil War to preserve the institution of slavery. It seems that many of the posts were established around the time of World War I about 50 years after Robert E. Lees surrender at Appomattox. The power to name posts falls to the assistant secretary of the army for manpower and reserve affairs. Finally, he cut loose a horse from a nearby artillery battery and rode into combat bareback. The ship hauled cargo and troops throughout the Pacific theater. Gen. Henry Benning was a Georgia native who led troops at the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam and the Battle of Gettysburg. He also was a lawyer, legislator, and judge on the Georgia Supreme Court. William Sturkey, a history professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, says the military left much of the decision-making to the local and, of course, entirely white authorities. Lt. Gen. A.P. Beauregard, Benning, Lee , Pickett, Rucker, A.P. Another is to give the spotlight to distinguished service members from minority communities. Many werent even particularly effective military leaders. 2, p. 219, n. 53, but is incorrectly ascribed to, U.S. Army installations named after Confederate soldiers, List of American Civil War generals (Confederate), List of signers of the Georgia Ordinance of Secession, "Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought", "Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention", "Letter from Henry Benning to Howell Cobb", General Henry Lewis Benning: A Biography of Georgia's Supreme Court Justice and Confederate General, "Take the Confederate Names Off Our Army Bases", Henry L. Benning-Seaborn Jones Collection (MC 6) at Columbus State University Archives, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_L._Benning&oldid=1154763013, Hewitt, Lawrence C. "Henry Lewis Benning." Army renames Georgia's Fort Benning after decorated Vietnam vet Hal Moore served in Vietnam as commander of a cavalry battalion based at Fort Benning and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Those bases were not founded in the wake of the Civil War, when President Lincoln encouraged national conciliation. There, on July 2, 1863, Benning led his brigade in a furious assault against the Union position in the Devil's Den, driving out the defenders at no small cost to themselves. The Army doesn't plan on renaming 10 installations named for For example, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Maj. Gen. George Pickett, both Virginians, have bases named after them in the state. In 2005, his vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device and consumed in flames. The U.S. Army installation Fort Benning was named after Benning. Most were specifically chosen because of their local ties. Fort Benning in Georgia, the home of Army infantry and airborne training, is named after Brig. He also suggests that Yankee soldiers didn't oppose slavery and were only fighting to preserve the Union. In 1853, he was elected an associate justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, where he was noted for an opinion that held that a state supreme court is not bound by the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional questions but that the two courts must be held to be "coordinate and co-equal."[4]. Whats more, he lost big in the 1863 Battle of Chattanooga, leading him to resign from the Confederate army. How did the United States come to have nearly a dozen military installations named not after its heroes but after its enemies men who led a war against the country and killed tens of thousands of people in defense of the indefensible institution of slavery? If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. Within the next few months, that number could possibly drop to zero. Beauregard, a Louisiana-born Confederate military commander. Subscribe to the Military.com newsletter to have military news, updates and resources delivered straight to your inbox. Statues and memorials to Confederate leaders were being erected. So went back to practicing law. He commanded "Benning's Brigade" during the American Civil War. Hood, Pickett and Polk were created. The secretary could simply write a memo and the bases names would change. His brigade withstood strong Union assaults against its entrenchments but was forced to withdraw along with the rest of Lee's army in the retreat to Appomattox Court House in early April 1865. A native of Knoxville and graduate of the University of Tennessee, she has worked at the AJC for 22 years. Between those events, he became an outspoken supporter of secession. Brig. hide caption. Years before Margaret Mitchell published her Civil War novel, Gone with the Wind, she wrote an article in the Atlanta Constitution (December 20, 1925)[verification needed] in which she referenced the Benning family and their experiences during the war. These are the Confederate commanders whose names will be removed - CNN Opinion: Let's Rethink The Names Behind Forts Benning And Bragg That tragedy brought national focus to the question of what should be done about public monuments, statues, and other representations honoring the pro-slavery Confederacy at a time of increasing diversity in the United States. France tries to make sense of a week of riots, after the killing of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk at a traffic stop. Which Military Bases Are Named After Confederate Generals? - Newsweek At the Battle of Antietam, Benning's brigade was a crucial part in the defense of the Confederate right flank, guarding "Burnside's Bridge" across Antietam Creek all morning against repeated Union assaults. Dont be discouraged, Christopher Nolan goes deep on Oppenheimer, his most extreme film to date, Created in California: How Dr. Bronners became the soap for every subculture, A filmmaker feared his subject had turned on him. Nicholas Goldberg is an associate editor and Op-Ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. (Kevin D. Liles for The Washington Post) Gift Article Share As the nation grapples with. He earned five Purple Hearts in combat. Forward march: Military bases removing names of Confederates Harold Holzer says Braxton Bragg, "may have been the worst commanding general in the Confederacy. The biggest formal push to rename an installation is to reflag Fort Hood after Roy Benavidez, a Green Beret who received the Medal of Honor for action in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. After college, he moved to Columbus, Georgia, which would be his home for the rest of his life. His incursion led the states lawmakers to request help from the Union, thus ending Kentuckys neutrality in the war. The Armys current position that it is merely celebrating American soldiers and upholding tradition ignores the ugly truth: Many bases are named for Confederates who were ardent white supremacists in the South before, during, and after the Civil War. Hill; For Lee; Fort Pickett; Fort Gordon; Fort Benning; Fort Rucker; Camp Beauregard; Fort Polk; Fort Hood I commanded Fort Benning, Home of the Infantry, one of 10 Army installation named after Confederate generals.
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