Braxton Bragg and Leonidas Polk have military bases named after them, Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Polk in Louisiana.
Congress recently enacted (over President Trump’s veto) a defense funding law that calls for renaming military bases that honored Confederate generals.
Samuel R. Staley, writing for the Independent Institute, gives an intriguing argument in favor of the renaming. His argument is not that Confederate generals were traitors, as some have claimed (and others have rejected). Rather, their names were used as a way of maintaining Jim Crow segregation.
First, says Staley, the generals honored were, mostly, not very good generals.
“Of the [ten] current bases bearing the names of confederate officers, eight had undistinguished and occasionally exceptionally poor military records. In fact, three—Braxton Bragg, George Pickett, and Leonidas Polk—could even be rated incompetent. Others, such as John Bell Hood, were known for being reckless and ineffective, particularly later in the war. The others, excepting Lee and Georgia’s John Brown Gordon, have mixed records according to historians.”
And Staley asks, “[W]hat qualifies these generals to rise above more than 380 brigadier generals, 88 major generals, 18 lieutenant generals, and five generals fighting for the southern cause?”
It is certainly an open question.
Second, the bases were named in two periods, five of the bases in 1917 and 1918 and the other five in 1941 and 1942. Both periods were at the start of world wars and both were part of the Jim Crow period that extended from the end of Reconstruction to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In that long period, segregation and white supremacy dominated relationships between blacks and whites. Lynchings of African Americans continued into the 1940s.
Staley argues that the names were designed to frighten and thus control African American soldiers.
“As the U.S. geared up for global wars in the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of African Americans from around the nation would be trained at these facilities. Indeed, as Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s chronicles these threats in Brothers in Arms, an engaging history of distinguished 761st Tank Battalion in World War II, African American soldiers quickly learned that while the military might give lip service to equality, their lives were continuously in physical danger as they trained at these southern bases.
“Indeed, famed baseball player Jackie Robinson, a Captain in the U.S. Army, was infamously court martialed at Fort Hood in Texas. A white bus driver had him arrested for not moving to the back seat of his bus despite army regulations requiring equal treatment. He was ultimately acquitted. But the racism embedded in the arrest and early findings against him was palpable.”
So, were military bases named for Confederate generals to keep control of black soldiers?
Ten military bases were named for Confederate generals, but today there are 440 military bases in the country, so the percentage is small. Most of the generals had come from the states where the bases are located. Yes, it is puzzling that so many of the generals were not heroes at all, but I would want to know the process for naming those bases. That would take some more research.
Perhaps the naming had more to do with gaining the support of, and perhaps stirring up, the white people in the area. That would indirectly encourage white supremacy and perhaps even lynchings. Thus Staley’s result may be right, although the path there still seems murky to me. I would love some comment.
Images: “Gen. Braxton Bragg” (left) by Allen Gathman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 and “Leonidas Polk” (right) by exit78 is marked with CC PDM 1.0.
Jane, This blog post has stimulated much good thinking, and I appreciate the comments of all who have responded thus far.
Naturally, as a society we change our thinking over time, and it should always be this. We often look at the words and deeds of our forebears with a more enlightened point of view.
But many have trouble drawing a line on the erasure of names and deeds. To want to erase the name of George Washington because he was a slaveholder simply negates the important part he played in the birth of our nation.
My inclination is to leave reminders of our history in place — the good and the bad. Let us learn from the good, reflect on the bad, and acknowledge the rich, complex history of our country.
My initial thoughts about Loretta Ross’s essay: This is an interesting essay but surprisingly devoid of… history. And the author makes no pretense to understand the other side. This is a shame, but her inability to work outside her own worldview means she is missing a lot of substance. Thus, the author’s perspective is very narrow.
In fact, the Republican Party membership is much more diverse, ideologically than she implies. I advise conservative student organizations on my campus and they were horrified by the events of January 6th. I saw, or heard, of no support for what the insurrectionists did.
True Trump supporters make up about one third of the party, but his support came from a number a different places, not just the racist elements or even the South. Trump’s success in 2016 had a lot to do with who he was running against. To put them all into White Supremacy seems like an explicit attempt to marginalize voices the author doesn’t agree with.
Professor Staley, you are correct. Loretta Ross’ essay is anti-historical. It is Marxist disinformation. But you need not fall for all the propaganda for it to work on you. You refer to the January 6th insurrection. There was no insurrection. A motley crowd of unarmed protestors, whipped up by a few provocateurs, largely unopposed by the Capitol police, is not an insurrection.
But Democrats in Congress are pretending there is an insurrection afoot, led by President Trump, and are using this as an excuse for a purge. Loretta Ross is simply giving voice to the Democrats’ position. She doesn’t need you to agree with her on solutions, she just needs you to agree on the alleged problem, as you’ve done in a different context, worrying about the supposed problem of Fort Benning.
Whenever non-leftists such as you adopt leftists’ conceptual frameworks, you cannot win. They’ve co-opted you.
The Counterpunch piece is guilty of many of the sins it condemns, beginning with stereotyping. This Smith professor writes, “The Republican brand as a legitimate political party will be forever associated with far-right ideologies, including neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates.”
One could as illegitimately write, “The Democrats as a legitimate political party will forever be associated with far left ideologies including Stalinism and Maoism.”
While White Supremacism is a legitimate subject for a university course, better yet, to understand human behavior would be a course in racial supremacism. It would include Chinese policy about Uighurs and Tibetans, Japanese supremacism as expressed before and during WWII, Arab supremacism of various sorts, and a variety of racial supremacy forms among Africans, Rwanda in particular.
Isn’t the controlling question, “Does it matter?” Either retaining a name or changing it. Does anyone on Ft. Bragg or Polk, etc. mention the namesake, or in current terms, are these names in the least weaponized by anyone? If not, why legitimize this usually childish and inconsistent name changing?
For instance, Yale gave in and renamed Calhoun College to Grace Murray (a rear admiral USN) but it has not that I know of considered replacing “Yale”. Elihu Yale, a merchant and slave trader.
Interesting controversy indeed. The generals in question were not particularly good ones, but I don’t think that makes any difference. There will be tangible costs to renaming and such expenditures won’t create any value at all. Why ramp up the national debt even a slight amount for some virtue signaling?
Any person or organization is free to spend their own funds on efforts at persuading Americans that a military base, or other government installation or building was named for an individual they regard as flawed, A list of such things could be educational. But they should spend their own funds.
Context matters. Cultural Marxists are pushing for the destruction of things American. Their arguments are not made in good faith, and treating them as if they are made in good faith and trying to find reasons (rationalizations, really) to justify them is an enormous, perhaps fatal, error.
Abraham Lincoln has come under similar attack. The Declaration and Constitution have as well. The arguments against them are deeply dishonest and have ulterior motives. For example, the purveyors of the 1619 Project disinformation know their material is false and refuse to address challengers and say as much when pressed.
The names of confederate officers on bases was not the source of America’s discord and changing them will cure nothing. Nor will it placate the left, who intend to continue until they’ve removed Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln , the Declaration & Constitution, and particularly the principles they stood for.
The report of President Trump’s 1776 Commission is worth consulting on this. I’d like to see a “Jane’s Take” on it:
https://info.hillsdale.edu/1776-commission
I would also be interested in analysis of this historian’s piece, in light of Staley’s argument:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/20/the-nazification-of-the-republican-party/
Highlights:
“Republicans are no longer entitled to exist as a legitimate political party…”
“They are seditionists, co-conspirators, and neo-Nazis hiding in plain sight who chose to use whatever power, platforms, and microphones they had to overturn this system of government.”
“These apologists trying to launder their shredded reputations should be denied jobs, media opportunities, publishing contracts, and all other opportunities to spread their contempt for democracy. As philosopher Karl Popper observed in 1945, ‘In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.’”
Yes, but it doesn’t stop with Republicans. The “progressive” zealots want to silence all political opposition and ruin the businesses of people who don’t go along with their plans for the transformation of society. A good example is the treatment of Mike Lindell, the “My Pillow” guy. The leftists intend to destroy his company if possible. These people have been trained to be vicious as guard dogs and have their own “Final Solution” in mind.