The Army is About to Rename 9 Confederate Forts — Here Are the Names

As a soldier between 1997 and 2003 and an airman between 2003 and 2007, much of my time in the military was spent at what we might today call “rebel forts.”

They were US Army posts (only the Air Force and Navy call them bases), which were named after Confederate generals.

As a young recruit from Texas, I attended infantry school at Fort Benning, Georgia, named after Gen. Henry Benning, who commanded the 17th Georgia Infantry under Robert E. Lee.

Benning saw action at the Second Battle of Manassas, the Battle of Antietam, and Gettysburg as a brigade commander.

I later deployed to the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Fort Polk is named for Gen. Leonidas Polk who enjoyed little success on the battlefield due to his inexperience, and was killed in action during the Atlanta campaign.

I was once tasked with a special duty assignment that involved driving my squad leader, against his will, to Fort Gordon in Georgia so that he could have a racist tattoo removed from his arm.

Ordered by our company commander to undergo the task, the C.O. said that his tattoo was counter to everything the US Army stood for and was not conducive to morale, good order, and discipline.

Ironically, our destination of Fort Gordon was named after John Brown Gordon who joined the Confederate Army as a captain in the 6th Alabama Infantry Regiment, despite having no military experience.

Why these US Army posts were named after confederate officers

All of the “rebel forts” were established between World Wars I and II, a period in which the U.S. Army attempted to recruit as many men as possible, including young white men in the South.

Despite this tactic, the Army still had to resort to the draft in both wars.

The Army thought that naming a large military post after Confederate generals might appeal to large swathes of young, able-bodied Southern fighters.

Also, the federal government required huge chunks of land for its military reservations.

Naming these plots of land after Confederate generals helped to attain buy-in from southern politicians and policymakers by appealing to the “Lost Cause” ideology…