As recently as February the Army said it had no intention of removing Confederate names from 10 of its bases.
On April 11, 1861, Brig. Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard, commander of Confederate forces in the Charleston area, demanded that Maj. Robert Anderson of the Union Army surrender his command at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Anderson refused. Beauregard opened fire. And the Civil War ensued.
Today, Beauregard has a U. S. Army base in Louisiana named after him. Anderson does not.
Beauregard was not alone in receiving such a high honor as a traitor to the United States. At least nine other major Army installations are named for generals who led Confederate troops — a practice the Army has defended for years based on the assertion that they have “a significant place in our military history,” as one Army official recently said.
Monuments and memorials bearing the names of men who fought to preserve slavery and uphold white supremacy are facing a reckoning, as demonstrations against police brutality have erupted across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The protests have also reignited a debate within the military community over 10 Army bases named after Confederate leaders, which as recently as February the service said it had no intention of changing, according to the military website Task & Purpose.
The service seemed to backtrack on that position, as a Pentagon official said Monday that Secretary of Defense Mark P. Esper and Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy were “open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic” of removing Confederate names from the bases. The announcement, first reported by Politico, comes as each of the services have started to contend with many longstanding practices and allegations of racial bias that have gone unaddressed.
The Army has not released any specific details so far. On Monday, the Pentagon official said Esper and McCarthy want Congress, the White House and other government officials to weigh in on the idea, according to CNN, shifting the responsibility onto lawmakers — a step that could delay action from being taken, if any is recommended at all.
The decision to name (or rename) installations falls to the assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs — an office currently held by retired Army officer Casey Wardynski. In the mid-2000s, Wardynski developed a video game called “America’s Army” while serving on the faculty at West Point. Army guidance directs that installation names be relevant to their surrounding areas. There is no requirement for politicians or the White House to weigh in.
Since the Revolutionary War, military bases have been named for commanders, high-ranking officers and even the engineers who supervised their construction. Until World War I, base names often, but not always, reflected local influences or historically significant soldiers local to the area.
Among the former states of the Confederacy, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina each have one Army base named for a Confederate general, according to a 2017 Congressional Research Service report.
