# Confederate-Named Military Bases Nine major U.S. Army installations — most established or expanded during the World War I and World War II mobilizations — were named to honor Confederate officers. The names were not [[American Civil War]]-era; they were assigned in the 20th century, often as gestures of sectional reconciliation that meant honoring men who had taken up arms against the United States. The bases sit alongside [[Confederate Monuments]] as the largest-footprint category of Confederate iconography embedded in federal property, and they have followed the same removal-then-restoration arc. ## The Naming Commission and the Renaming (2021–2023) The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, passed over a Trump veto, established an independent **Naming Commission** to rename Department of Defense assets honoring the Confederacy. Its 2022 report recommended new names for nine Army bases, and the renamings were carried out under the Biden administration through 2023. The new namesakes deliberately honored figures who broadened the Army's story — among them: - **Fort Benning (GA) → Fort Moore** — for Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julia Moore - **Fort Bragg (NC) → Fort Liberty** — the lone base given a value rather than a person - **Fort Hood (TX) → Fort Cavazos** — for Gen. Richard Cavazos, the Army's first Hispanic four-star general - **Fort Gordon (GA) → Fort Eisenhower** — for [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] - **Fort Rucker (AL) → Fort Novosel** — for Medal of Honor recipient Michael Novosel - **Fort Polk (LA) → Fort Johnson** — for Sgt. William Henry Johnson - Three Virginia bases — **Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Pickett, Fort Lee** — were also renamed (Fort Walker, Fort Barfoot, Fort Gregg-Adams) The commission framed the original names as artifacts of the same [[Jim Crow Era]]-era project ([[The Lost Cause]]) that produced the monuments — honors assigned long after the war as the South consolidated white supremacy and reconciliation-on-Confederate-terms. > [!note] The Navy's parallel track > The Naming Commission's remit reached beyond Army posts. On its September 2022 recommendation, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced on **February 27, 2023** that the guided-missile cruiser **USS *Chancellorsville* (CG-62)** — named for an 1863 Confederate victory — would be renamed **USS *Robert Smalls***, for [[Robert Smalls]], who was enslaved in Charleston and delivered a Confederate warship to the Union blockade in 1862. The ship renamings have not been reversed alongside the Army post names. ## The Reversal (2025) The second Trump administration reversed the renamings. Because a federal law still prohibits naming bases after Confederates who fought against the Union, the administration used a **namesake-swap workaround**: restoring the original *names* while attaching them to different service members who happened to share the same surname. - **Fort Liberty → Fort Bragg** (Feb 2025) — reassigned to Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a WWII paratrooper - **Fort Moore → Fort Benning** (Mar 2025) — reassigned to Cpl. Fred G. Benning, a WWI soldier - In **June 2025**, speaking at Fort Bragg, Trump announced the restoration of seven more original names — Fort Gordon, Fort Hood, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, and the three Virginia bases (including a **Fort Robert E. Lee**) — each routed through the same same-surname device. Critics noted the workaround restores the *symbolic payload* of the Confederate names while technically complying with the statute; supporters framed it under the broader "stop erasing history" messaging that also drives [[Executive Order 14253]]. The episode folded base names into the live 2025– restoration wave alongside the [[Albert Pike Statue]] and the [[Arlington Confederate Memorial]]. ## Why It Matters Here The bases are the clearest demonstration of the contested-symbols dynamic operating at the scale of federal institutions: a congressionally mandated removal, executed under one administration, functionally undone by the next through a legal end-run — with the names themselves treated as the prize worth fighting over. ## See Also - [[Contested Symbols Hub]] — the category map - [[Confederate Monuments]] — the phenomenon-level catalog - [[Executive Order 14253]] — the parallel monument-restoration order - [[The Lost Cause]] · [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] · [[Sons of Confederate Veterans]]