Why did the Army name military posts after men who waged war against the United States in a bloody conflict that resulted in the deaths of nearly 700,000 Americans? Why, at a time when the majority of active duty soldiers are nonwhite, would the Army revert base names back to honor men who championed the Ku Klux Klan, believed Black people should not have the right to vote, and argued for decades after the Civil War that white people were superior to people of other races?
Giving the names of Confederate traitors to military bases does not reflect a long-standing Army policy. For 50 years after the Civil War, the Army did not name a single new base after one, nor did it do so for more than 75 years after it desegregated its ranks in 1948.1 “Camps Named After Confederate Chiefs,” The Baltimore Sun, July 16, 1917; The Naming Commission, Final Report to Congress, August 2022; “Naming of U.S. Army Posts,” U.S. Army Center of Military History, accessed September 9, 2025.
Prior to 2025, every single base named for a Confederate traitor—all in the South—was dedicated during two brief moments in American history: the 15 months between July 1917 and October 1918 and the 13 months between January 1941 and February 1942. Understanding the context of these two short periods makes it even more clear why the 2025 choice to change nine Army base names back to the names of Confederate secessionists is so insulting to most Black Americans.
“The Natural, Inevitable Ascendancy of the Whites”
Prior to 1917, the U.S. military had only a small footprint in the South. This was a direct consequence of Reconstruction, the 12-year period after the Civil War, when many white Southerners forcefully objected to the presence of federal troops stationed there to protect the rights and safety of newly emancipated Black people.
In 1877, the federal government abandoned Reconstruction and withdrew troops from defending the Southern statehouses, paving the way for the rapid deterioration of political rights for Black Southerners and the ascendency of white leaders who were fiercely committed to racial hierarchy.
Mass membership groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the United Confederate Veterans soon formed to spread the ideology known as the Lost Cause, a revisionist narrative that asserted the Civil War was not about slavery, minimized the Confederacy’s military defeat, and celebrated the South’s triumph over Reconstruction.
By the early 1900s, these groups had tens of thousands of members organized into hundreds of local “camps” across the country, many of which were named for Confederate traitors. Members of the Lost Cause movement lobbied to have U.S. military installations named after Confederates, but these efforts were initially rejected.
That changed during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), who oversaw the first namings of U.S. military bases after people who waged war against the U.S. Wilson was the first president since the Civil War who was born and raised in the South.
Prior to running for office, he wrote a history textbook in which he argued that efforts to promote Black social, political, and economic equality during the Reconstruction era had been a mistake.2 Christopher Cox, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn (Simon & Schuster, 2024), 101-102; Clint Smith, “Arlington’s Civil War Legacy Is Finally Laid to Rest,” The Atlantic, December 23, 2023. Of Reconstruction’s collapse, he wrote, “Negro rule under unscrupulous adventurers had been finally put an end to in the South, and the natural, inevitable ascendancy of the whites, the responsible class, established.”
“Heroic Things Were Done on Both Sides”
In 1913, Wilson gave a speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Whereas President Abraham Lincoln’s famous 1863 “Gettysburg Address” had argued that the Civil War would determine whether a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…can long endure,” Wilson’s address made no mention of slavery, and it drew heavy criticism from African Americans across the country.3 Cox, Woodrow Wilson, 189.
During his presidency, Wilson segregated the federal workforce, banned Black people from serving in the Navy, which had been integrated for 100 years, and screened Birth of a Nation, a film glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, at the White House.
In June 1917, Wilson honored a large contingent of Confederate veterans with a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. In a speech following the display, he declared, “There are many memories of the Civil War that thrill along the blood and make one proud to have been sprung of a race that could produce such bravery and constancy,” arguing that “heroic things were done on both sides.”
“The South is in the Saddle”
A month after former Confederate soldiers who fought against the United States triumphantly paraded in front of the White House, the Army announced it would name military posts after Confederate figures for the first time. Four Confederate leaders were initially honored: John Brown Gordon, Robert E. Lee, Pierre Beauregard, and Joseph Wheeler. In 1918, Braxton Bragg and Henry Benning were also honored with base names, the latter at the urging of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.4 “Fayetteville Camp To Be Called Camp Bragg,” Salisbury Evening Post, August 20, 1918; “Brief Sketch of General Benning for Whom Camp at Columbus Has Been Named,” The Columbus Ledger, October 20, 1918; Szoldra, “Secret History.” There were no reports of any input from or consideration of Black service members during the naming process.
The military official who announced the namings was Joseph E. Kuhn, who was described by historian Hal S. Chase as “especially prejudiced” among military leadership. In May 1917, when the Army considered opening a training camp for Black officers, Kuhn wrote, “That colored officers should not be assigned to white organizations requires no argument.”
The U.S. government’s embrace of the Lost Cause came as the military increasingly condoned and even participated in mob violence against Black Americans. Just two weeks before these names were announced, National Guard personnel were deployed to East St. Louis, Illinois, to defend Black workers against rioting white mobs. But many white soldiers refused to use force to stop the mobs, and some reportedly joined the violence that left at least 39 Black people dead.
Later in the Wilson presidency, American soldiers and sailors, some in uniform, joined white mobs terrorizing Black people across the country during what was called the “Red Summer” of 1919, including in Washington, Chicago, and Charleston, South Carolina.
Black newspapers were intensely critical of the Wilson administration’s embrace of the Lost Cause. The Philadelphia Tribune wrote, “Think of it. No apologies to make for trying to destroy this grand old Union of States. No apologies to make for the needless sacrifice of precious lives.”
“Today the South is in the saddle,” wrote the editorial board of the Baltimore Afro-American, “and with the single exception of slavery, everything it fought for in the days of the Civil War, it has gained by repression of the Negro within its borders.”
“A Climate in Which Progress Could Be Made”
The second wave of naming bases for Confederate traitors came amidst a national campaign by Black activists to desegregate the armed forces during the build-up to World War II. Later referred to as the “Double V” campaign—signifying victory over fascism abroad and racism at home—the movement successfully lobbied for the expansion of Black participation in the war effort.
In 1940, Congress agreed to include in the Selective Service Act of 1940 the provision that “there shall be no discrimination against any person on the account of race or color” during the enlistment process. Soon after, NAACP secretary Walter White and other Black leaders engaged in a high-profile meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss further integration of the armed forces. In June 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which banned racial discrimination by government defense contractors.
These actions “created a climate in which progress could be made toward integration within the services,” Army historian Morris J. MacGregor Jr. wrote.
But progress was fiercely resisted. Many military officials remained opposed to Black soldiers serving on an equal basis. White workers outraged at having to work alongside Black co-workers rioted across the country, including in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Mobile, Alabama.5 Bruce Nelson, “Organized Labor and the Struggle for Black Equality in Mobile during World War II,” The Journal of American History 80, no. 3 (Dec., 1993), 952. In many cases, Southern states managed to circumvent the desegregation orders.6 Charles C. Bolton, Home Front Battles (Oxford University Press, 2024), 68; Equal Justice Initiative, “Alabama Refuses to Aid in War Effort if Any Form of Racial Integration Is Required.”
“If One Wanted a Symbol for the Antithesis of Democracy”
Against this backdrop, the Army, in consultation with Southern leaders, named bases after eight more Confederate traitors—Leonidas Polk, A.P. Hill, George E. Pickett, Edmund M. Rucker, John Bell Hood, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Earl Van Dorn, and John Brown Gordon. Just as in World War I, the Army did not consider any naming candidates who were Black, Native American, Latino, Asian American, or women.7 Connor Williams and Ty Seidule, A Promise Delivered (Macmillan, 2025), 10-11.
The namings were approved by then-Secretary of the War Department Henry L. Stimson. Stimson was staunchly opposed to the integration of Black troops. He defended segregation as military tradition and told Roosevelt not to place “too much responsibility on a race which was not showing initiative in battle.” He denounced “foolish leaders of the colored race” for seeking “social equality”—which could never be achieved “because of the impossibility of race mixture by marriage.”
Once again, Black leaders voiced opposition. One critic was David V. Robison, an instructor at Fisk University, a historically Black college in Tennessee. Naming a base in Tennessee for Nathan Bedford Forrest—who during the Civil War led a massacre of over 150 Black U.S. soldiers after they had surrendered and after the war led the Ku Klux Klan—“sheds a strange light on the nature of a defense program which already excludes Negroes from many of its activities,” he wrote. “If one wanted a symbol for the antithesis of democracy, one could find nothing better than the name of General Forrest.”
Maj. Gen. Samuel T. Lawton and other leaders in the Illinois National Guard also protested the Confederate namings after their forces, including a field artillery regiment composed of Black soldiers, were ordered to train at Camp Nathan Bedford Forrest.8 “Renaming Camp to Forrest Puts Yankee Blood Boiling,” The Commercial Appeal, January 26, 1941; “Naming Camp ‘Forrest’ Brings Yankee Protest,” The Knoxville Journal, January 26, 1941; “Camp Forrest,” Bristol Herald Courier, January 27, 1941.
Exploiting Ambiguity in Defense of the Confederate Cause
In 1948, the U.S. military finally desegregated its ranks, and between then and 2025, it did not name any additional military installations after anyone who fought against the U.S. to defend slavery. Some bases with Confederate names closed after World War II. The remaining bases were a continuing source of division.
In 2023, the Army renamed all existing bases with Confederate names to honor decorated service members who never engaged in treason.
But less than two years later, the Trump administration reverted the names back. In a transparent attempt to circumvent federal law, which now prohibits naming military installations for Confederate traitors, the Defense Department claimed the names honored different individuals with the same last name as Confederate leaders.
The issue of common surnames has recurred during efforts by Lost Cause supporters to influence base naming. During World War II, the War Department rejected a proposal to name a South Carolina base “Camp Lincoln” in honor of Revolutionary War hero Benjamin Lincoln because they worried the name might offend Southerners who detested Abraham Lincoln.
Similarly, a proposal to change South Carolina’s “Camp Jackson” to “Camp Andrew Jackson” to clarify that it was not named for Confederate leader Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was rejected.
Not Just Names
The congressionally authorized Naming Commission, a group of military experts whose work informed the removal of Confederate base names in 2023, wrote, “In every case, these [Confederate] names speak far more to the times, places and processes that created them than they do to any actual history of the Civil War, the Confederate insurrection, or our nation’s struggle over slavery and freedom.”
The first round of Confederate base names was issued at a time when a false, mythologized narrative about the Civil War era was being fully embraced at the highest levels of the U.S. government. The second round came amid a virulent backlash to the possibility of the inclusion of Black soldiers on an equal basis in the U.S. military. Similarly, the 2025 choice to revert back to the names of Confederate traitors is not just about the names themselves. That choice is an active endorsement of the dangerous views that led to the bases being given these names originally.