U.S. Army Installations Named for Confederates

Where do we go from here?

Bob Milani, Kennesaw, GA -- June 14, 2020

As the national debate unfolds over the renaming of U.S. Army installations that honors men who fought to preserve slavery – I think it a good time for reflection on what that means to soldiers and Americans alike.

Military history, and especially the U.S. Civil War, is my hobby. For most of my adult life, I have lived in Georgia and Virginia. I have lived among the buildings, monuments, and streets, named after many Confederate generals. I have toured many battlefields and have an excellent collection of military history books devoted to the Civil War.

While in college, I had a summer job at the Chamberlain Hotel, located at Ft. Monroe, an island in the Chesapeake Bay. Fort Monroe – a fort encircled by a moat, had been dredged by a young West Point graduate and engineer, Robert E. Lee. I was responsible for giving tours of the fort and its historical sites. The Battle of Hampton Roads featuring the first duel between two ironclad ships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimack, occurred in front of the Chamberlain Hotel. I also gave tours of the Casemate Museum and the jail cell of Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy, imprisoned at Fort Monroe for two years after the Civil War.

I've been stationed or trained at five U.S. Army installations named for former Confederate generals: Fort Bragg, Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Hood, Fort Pickett, and Fort Benning. While I never served at Fort Polk, I know a lot about Gen. Leonidas Polk. He was an Episcopalian bishop and founder of the University of the South, in Suwanee, Tennessee. A Union-fired cannonball killed him on Pine Mountain, Georgia, a large hill that is the backdrop of my neighborhood.

When I was training and learning military history, I found it mildly curious that the U.S. Army allowed its bases, some of the largest military bases in the world, to be named after Confederate generals. As I have become a more astute student of warfare, I found it even more curious that we would name our bases after Confederate generals known more for losing than winning. Generals Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood are two that come to mind. The former, Bragg, is generally considered the worst general of the Civil War and was relieved by Jefferson Davis as his army was routed by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Chattanooga campaigns. The latter, Hood, was known for his recklessness and making huge gambles. Union Gen. George Thomas all but obliterated Hood's army in the Battle of Nashville.

For anyone who has served in the U.S. Army, their service is typically synonymous with their duty location. "When I was at Bragg …" implies that one was a paratrooper or even a special operator. If a soldier said, "I was at Hood …" this means that one was in the cavalry or a tanker or part of a large mechanized force serving at the largest military base in the world. And my favorite, "I served at Benning …" implies being in the infantry and all that comes from training in the rain, red clay, and amongst those god-awful mites known as 'chiggers' in southwest Georgia. These names reflect the service, the training, and in many cases – the ability of soldiers to persevere in the most stressful and god-awful environments the U.S. Army can pick for a training post. Our experiences are identified in the names of these institutions and transcend the unfortunate name of the installation and its historical implication.

You could say because of my upbringing, my Civil War avocation, and my service in the U.S. Army, that I have an emotional and deep connection to the South, the Civil War, and the U.S. Army. I can see all sides. But despite the personal connection I have to the bases named after Confederate generals, I believe we are at a moment in history that deserves a re-thinking of why we name our military bases the way we do.

We should welcome this debate and ensure it is not one characterized by politics – but by a genuine desire to celebrate heroes – real American heroes!

I worry that the renaming of U.S. Army bases will become a political exercise. I would recommend that we form a commission -- let's assemble a panel of historians, military officers, soldiers, and other stakeholders and debate the merits. One side can argue why the name should stay the same; the other side can argue why it should change. We should debate and vote democratically, not leave this to 'government knows best' mandates and forced change viewed through the lens of modern-day sensibilities and righteousness.

If you sat on this commission or panel -- what would be your recommendation? What would you do? What base name would you recommend to be changed or left as is?

There is a trick question that some Civil War enthusiasts ask. It is, 'Who is the winningest civil war general from the state of Virginia?' Most people answer Robert E. Lee. The correct answer (according to some:) is Union General George Thomas. Thomas chose to remain with the U.S. Army for the Civil War as a Southern Unionist despite his heritage as a Virginian. George Thomas, the hero of so many battles and known as the 'Rock of Chickamauga' is mostly a forgotten hero. He was considered a traitor by his own family and scorned by Virginians and Southerners. Union officers never fully accepted him into their ranks and questioned his loyalty. Yet, he was an American first and foremost and gave so much to this country. He exemplified the motto of his alma mater: Duty, Honor, Country. Wouldn't it be interesting if we chose to name Ft. Lee, Virginia, named after Robert E Lee, to Ft Thomas?

I note in correspondence Lee had with one bitter Confederate widow after the war, he wrote, "Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring your children up to be Americans." Lee wanted the country to heal and move on. That's what I want too --

Spring Grove Cemetery
Cincinnati, Ohio

General Dan McCook

Those of you who know me well, realize that I like to visit cemeteries. This affinity comes from my love of history, my time at Arlington in the Old Guard, and my connection to my GGF Guiseppe Milani, who quarried stone for use in memorials and headstones.

So on a recent work-related trip to Cincinnati, I decided to visit Spring Grove Cemetery -- truly the most beautiful cemetery I have visited and one of only 5 cemeteries designated a National Historic Landmark. http://www.springgrove.org/. An artist once said of Spring Grove: "Only a place with a heart and soul could make for its dead a more magnificent park than any which exists for the living." This is truly a special place -- the monuments, the crypts, the architecture, the landscape ... stunningly beautiful.

The cemetery also bears a local connection to Kennesaw, Georgia -- my hometown. It is the burial place of one of our nation's unsung heroes: Gen. Daniel McCook. A lawyer by profession, McCook was the law partner of William Tecumseh Sherman before the Civil War. So it is with great irony that Gen. Sherman would order what is described by many as the North's Picket's Charge against the "Dead Angle" of the Confederate left flank in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. It was an avoidable and senseless slaughter of 3000 men -- many from Illinois and Ohio.

The cynic in me supposes this was Sherman's determination to put his stalled command back in the news and dislodge Grant from the glorious headlines he was generating in Virginia. Instead of trying to outflank his enemy as he had proven time and again that he could do, and acting against the advice of his subordinate commanders, Sherman opted for a frontal assault against a well-entrenched enemy, atop what is now known as Cheatham Hill.

On June 27, 1864, McCook was brought "to the apogee of his military career" and was to lead the assault against Cheatham Hill. On this fateful morning, he seemed "eager for the trial" before him. He was cautioned by his commanders: "Don't be rash, colonel, don't be rash." In response to this cautionary counsel, Col. Dan responded with a quote from McCauley's "Horatius":

Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the gate:

"To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods."

Dan McCook led his brigade up a hill, over open terrain against an entrenched enemy. He made it to the top of the hill, "to stand fearlessly on the parapet, (of the confederate entrenchments) one foot resting on the head log. He used his sword to parry efforts by the Confederates to bayonet him. He was shot by a Confederate soldier who pointed the muzzle of his musket only a foot from Colonel Dan's body." Dan McCook would die from his wounds less than a month later in Steubenville, Ohio.

A fellow Ohioan would say of the Kennesaw battle: "There is no place where we were tested that to me finds so much interest, as Kennesaw Mountain was our Golgotha and our Waterloo."

Colonel Dan McCook was promoted to General just before he died. He was laid to rest in this beautiful cemetery with his family better known as "The Fighting McCooks" a family with a long and distinguished service (and loss) to this great nation. Indeed.

The picture is of me standing next to the McCook Family Memorial in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio. The other picture is of Cheatham Hill, looking downhill from the Confederate position. The Union assault started in the tree line and moved 400 yards up this hill. The site of Dan McCook's mortal wounding is just behind this fence and is marked by a memorial plaque. I live just two miles north of this location.

Today is All Souls Day -- please remember Dan McCook in your prayers.

The Dead Angle - 3000 men would die on this hill.  Dan McCook would make it all the way to the top before being mortally wounded.  

The McCook family plot at Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio

Memorial Day 2023

Cassville Cemetery

Cassville, Georgia

Pro patria mori dulce et decorum est.

Recently, I took take a trip to Cassville, Georgia – to visit Cassville Cemetery, also known as "The Confederate Cemetery at Cassville." There are approximately 300 Confederate graves there, under the care of the State of Georgia.

Interestingly I stumbled across the grave of Confederate soldier W.M. Barrow who died during the Civil War in December 1863. I was immediately curious about his name, wondering if the initials' W.M.' were for Willie Micajah Barrow, who wrote "The Civil War Diary of Willie Micajah Barrow"?

A quick Google search confirmed this was indeed him. Barrow's Civil War diary is often quoted by researchers and historians as an essential source of information about the Confederate soldier's routine and outlook.

I noticed that Barrow was a long way from home. He was born in St. Francisville, Louisiana, and enlisted in the 4th Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers. He was captured at the Battle of Shiloh and imprisoned at Camp Douglas, Chicago, in August 1862. Barrow was released in September 1862, re-enlisted in the Confederacy, and served in Tennessee and Georgia from 1862 to 1863. Barrow died of dysentery in Dalton, Georgia -- 14 months after his release from Camp Douglas. He was 20 years old.

I found the quote on Barrow's grave very interesting: 'Pro patria mori dulce et decorum est.'

The Roman lyrical poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (aka Horace) c. 23 BC wrote the line in his poem Odes. Latin translation: 'It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.' This was a popular phrase in the 19th and early 20th Centuries and was etched on many memorials and monuments to the fallen. (This line is etched above the entrance to the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington Cemetery.)

While serving with the Old Guard at Arlington Cemetery, I became acquainted with Wilfred Owen's poetry – a WWI British Army soldier and probably the definitive poet of that war. He is best known for his poem: "Dulce et Decorum Est" where he speaks of the horrific experiences of being a soldier in WWI. Owen would call Horace's line the "the old Lie," suggesting that it is designed to goad young men into battle:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro Patria Mori.

Owen wrote his poem in 1917. The horrors of chemical warfare loom large in 'Dulce et Decorum est.' Owen had experienced the atrocities of war personally: he was hospitalized with a concussion and later suffered shell shock. Conscripted in 2015, Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918, precisely one week (almost to the hour) before the Armistice's signing, which ended the war. He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry. He was 25 years old.

There is a certain irony that is not lost on me in writing this post -- both Barrow and Owen would die in what would seem to be the opposite trajectory of their idealized vision of war: Barrow volunteered to fight for a cause in which he believed and died an inglorious if not a humiliating death. Owen was conscripted to service and did his duty gallantly, if not for glory.

Not surprisingly, this oft-used phrase inscribed on war memorials and headstones prior to WWI, lost its favor after the War to end all Wars.

The Memorial Amphitheater, Arlington National Cemetery, note the top line:  Dolce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

Owen is buried at Ors Communal Cemetery, Ors, in northern France.The inscription on his gravestone, chosen by his mother Susan, is a quotation from his poetry: "SHALL LIFE RENEW THESE BODIES? OF A TRUTH ALL DEATH WILL HE ANNUL" W.O.