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Fort named after Gen. Robert E. Lee will now honor a Buffalo Soldier

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Amid President Donald Trump’s plans to revert the designations of seven Army installations previously named for Confederate fighters to their old names, albeit new namesakes, comes the Army’s announcement that Fort Lee in Virginia will become the first base to be named after a Buffalo Soldier.

Fort named after Gen. Robert E. Lee will now honor a Buffalo Soldier

Fort Gregg-Adams, formerly Fort Lee, was in 2023 the first Army base to be named for Black Americans. Now, it'll be the first named for a Buffalo Solider.
www.militarytimes.com
It will be renamed for Pvt. Fitz Lee, a Buffalo soldier who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Spanish-American War.
 
So they go back to Fort Lee and say it's about a Private who won the CMH in 1898.
Uh, hm...

According to Google the first black soldier to win the CMH was Sergeant Carney in the Civil War. Too bad he had the wrong name- he might have a fort named for him.

edit- the action Carney received the Medal for was the first involving a black soldier but he didn't receive the Medal till 1900.
 
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Hegseth will pry himself away from the bar long enough to put a stop to the unholy liberal destruction of our great slaver heritage! Which IS great, despite the fact that all Confederate slavers were Democrats.
 
It should come as no surprise that our resident White House insurrectionist, and unabashed lifelong racist, should want to restore his fellow traitors and bigots to places of high praise and recognition, just as he aspires for himself. Most of us with our eyes open have already known for years that the America Trump wants to make great again is the America of the 1860's, when robber barons like himself had free reign to pillage the nation's resources for personal gain, just as he does now.
 
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This is something one would expect from a clever middle school kid. In fact, I think I tried schemes like this out on my parents from time to time.
 
Lycanthrope said:
Hegseth will pry himself away from the bar long enough to put a stop to the unholy liberal destruction of our great slaver heritage! Which IS great, despite the fact that all Confederate slavers were Democrats.
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Today their descendants are Republicans. This is since Nixon's notorious "Southern Strategy" that changed the South to Republican from having been Democrats.

The through line is conservative Democrats and conservative Republicans to include extremist nutcases such as the KKK and the Nazis.

Conservatives.

MAGAs.
 
I should have applied the sarcasm tag to my post.

These days you can't talk about slavery and the Confederacy and the South without MAGAs shrieking "IT WAS DUH DEMS!"

You'd think they wouldn't be so enamored with all that "Democrat" stuff.
 
Cool beans.
 
The Army post where I was stationed for almost four full years many moons ago had Henry Gate of the Buffalo Soldiers as one of its gates. Since I did my ETS in 1970 the post has added Buffalo Soldier Drive as another tribute to the Buffalo Soldiers who were stationed at Ft. Myer.

Ft. Myer in the Military District of Washington DC has long had Henry Gate that joins Arlington County Va. at Pershing Drive that runs from inside the post out through the County. The Buffalo Soldiers Troop K, 9th Cavalry, arrived at Fort Myer on 25 May 1891 under the Command of Major Guy Henry, Medal of Honor recipient. Henry Gate at Fort Myer is named after him. It was the first time Buffalo Soldiers appeared east of the Mississippi River.


The Buffalo Soldiers Machine Gun Troop, 10th Cavalry Regiment, in the photo below arrived at Fort Myer on 15 October 1931 under the command of Captain Clyde D. Garrison and First Sergeant Howard Wilson. The 10th Cavalry served at Fort Myer until 1949 being succeeded by the 3rd Infantry Regiment brought to Washington from the West Berlin Garrison early in the Cold War.


Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment march in the Washington DC National Memorial Day Parade,1942.



The Fort Myer Military Community had a daylong series of events on 18 September 1997 to honor the Buffalo Soldiers 9th and 10th (Horse) Cavalry Regiments. A wreath was laid at the grave of Sergeant Thomas Shaw, one of six Buffalo Soldiers buried at Arlington National Cemetery who were so honored.


NCO Sergeants of the Buffalo Soldiers Machine Gun Troop, 10th Cavalry (Horse) Regiment at Ft. Myer 1934.




During the Punitive Expedition into Mexico, unsuccessfully pursuing Pancho Villa, 1916-17, General "Black Jack" Pershing in command included the Buffalo Soldiers 10th Cavalry in his force. He assigned the Buffalo Soldiers 9th Cavalry with the 3rd Infantry Regiment The Old Guard of the Army as reserve forces that also secured the USA-Mexico border during the Expedition. Pershing early in his career gained the nick "Black Jack" because of his advocacy and advancement of black Soldiers in the Army. Contrary to a popular opinion, the nick is not "Blackjack" Pershing nor was it the name of his horse. The nick was always "Black Jack" Pershing who was Caucasian.


In 1932 the retired but uniformed General John. J. "Black Jack" Pershing reviewed Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry at Ft. Myer with the post commander Col. Harry Newton Cootes.

 
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I opposed renaming the installations in the first place. But once done I'm now opposed to changing the names back, albeit to honor different persons with the same last names.

The original names were chosen because the person had some kind of local or state connection. John Bell Hood's connection was with the confederate Texas Brigade. Naming the camp (later fort) in the 1940s in his honor was good public relations, as not being so neighborly had they named the original place Camp Tecumseh Sherman.

Having renamed the fort to honor Congressional Medal of Honor awardee General Richard E. Cavazos' 33 years of military service, changing the name back to Fort Hood is a slap at Korean and Vietnam war veterans, not to mention an insult to the Cavazos family.

And that's what I think about that.
 
Along Came Jones said:
I opposed renaming the installations in the first place. But once done I'm now opposed to changing the names back, albeit to honor different persons with the same last names.
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Yeah, that's a bullshit pretense, that stuff about the black Private named Lee. This isn't to honour him, it's to restore General Lee's name.
It's a cynical exploitation of Private Lee's race and courage to advance an agenda.
 
The Army forts were given their Confederate names due to (1) their Southern location, (2) to assauge Southern butt hurt during our failed Reconstruction, and (3) lobbying by such groups as the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Fort Drum in New York wasn't named after a Confederate traitor. Neither was Fort Meade in Maryland nor Fort Huachuca in Arizona.

The Trump administration again re-naming 9 US Army bases after Confederate traitors is emblamatic of their illusory patriotism and barely masked racism.
 
The Confederate States of America existed for two months before they launched a war that led to their annihilation. Commemorating them is commemorating one of history's dumbest blunders. Loyalty to them is loyalty to a passel of bumbling dimwits.
 
Grand Mal said:
The Confederate States of America existed for two months before they launched a war that led to their annihilation. Commemorating them is commemorating one of history's dumbest blunders.
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Perhaps commemorating one of history's dumbest blunders is justification enough -- if the folly is made visible and demonstrable.
 
Along Came Jones said:
Perhaps commemorating one of history's dumbest blunders is justification enough -- if the folly is made visible and demonstrable.
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If that were the case. But naming US military facilities after officers in a defeated army of a foreign country looks like folly. What's next- Fort Von Manstein? Naval Base Yamamoto?
 
Grand Mal said:
If that were the case. But naming US military facilities after officers in a defeated army of a foreign country looks like folly. What's next- Fort Von Manstein? Naval Base Yamamoto?
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No. We're opining about the great blunder that was the confederate secession from the United States. At least, I am.

One subtle illustration of how the lesson might be taught comes from when I was ten years old visiting Virginia cousins. A popular 1957 tv series was The Gray Ghost depicting the cavalry exploits of Confederate Colonel John Mosby. The cousins would divide up as rebels and yankees and in our play reimagine fighting the Civil War.

For some reason I do not remember I asked an uncle which side he would choose. I expected him to choose our favorite side, the Gray. "If I knew then what I know now, I'd have to choose the Blue." Made no immediate sense to me, but the idea was firmly planted. Something was wrong about the Confederacy.

I'm aware not everyone has an enlightened favorite uncle or aunt. But there are enough of them to convey the history attached to a place name. If the names or the statutes disappear, so does the chance for placing the events they reflect in their proper historical context.
 
Rogue Valley said:
The Army forts were given their Confederate names due to (1) their Southern location, (2) to assauge Southern butt hurt during our failed Reconstruction, and (3) lobbying by such groups as the Daughters of the Confederacy.
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Wrong.

They were given those names because all of them before they were US Army installations were State National Guard installations. And when it comes to naming the installations of a National Guard facility inside their own state, the state has the authority to name it whatever they want.

Fort Benning was established in 1918 as Camp Benning, a training base for Georgia National Guard in WWI. In 1922 it was decided to make it a permanent Army Fort, and the name remained the same.

Fort Bragg, the same thing but it was made for the North Carolina National Guard as Camp Bragg. Once again the Army deciding to make it a permanent fort in 1922 so the name remained the same.

Fort Rucker is even more interesting. Made in 1942 as Camp Rucker for training the Alabama National Guard for WWII, it was then deactivated in 1946 and only used for training for the National Guard. Then reactivated as Camp Rucker in 1950 for the Korean War. It was then deactivated once again in 1954, only to be reactivated as the base for "Army Aviation" in 1955 as Fort Rucker.

I have been stationed on and trained on a great many bases like this over the decades. One of which is Camp Roberts, a California National Guard base built for WWII and named after a Californian who won the Medal of Honor in WWI. Still owned and run by the National Guard, it still uses that name. Or the nearby Camp Hunter Liggett, now Fort Hunter Liggett.

Or an interesting one near where I live now. For WWII, the Oregon National Guard built Camp White. Named after the commander of the Oregon National Guard who had contracted dysentery while doing training at Camp Hunter Liggett and died in November 1941. So when the base was made they named it after him. But like most such training camps, after the war it was deactivated (and the only real part that remains is now our local VA center). Oh, and the post office, which was during the war "Camp White Post Office" became "White City Post Office", and the community that formed after the base closed still retains that name.

So no, none were named to "assuage Southern butt hurt", or lobbying, or any such nonsense. All of them were National Guard bases of those states, that the Army at a later date converted into a permanent installation. And when doing so, the names simply do not change.
 
To be honest, I would love to see a base named after General Joseph Wheeler. One of the very few Confederates buried in Arlington, because of his outstanding service in the Spanish-American War.

 
Lycanthrope said:
Why are MAGAs so hot to celebrate Confederate slavers? Don't they assert they were all Democrats?
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They're the same people who since years ago praise and defend Putin The Barbarian.

And who here in the USA pine for the day they can get away with wearing their armbands outside the home too. As we know, the Confederacy was a racist supremacist single party state fascist oligarchy before there was fascism.

Confederates ceased to be Democrats and patriots when they seceded and finalized it by firing on Ft. Sumpter. The Mr. Nice Guy Reconstruction Gone Bust restored the Confederates to the Democratic Party. And as we also know, the through line about the Confederacy from then to now is conservatism and extremist and unrestrained murder by the KKK.
 
20% of the cowboys out west during the settling years were black.
 
The Civil War SGT Wm. Carney served in the all black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Colored Infantry Regiment that was commanded by white officers who nominated Carney for the award. Carney is the first black to receive the MOH award, in 1900 as noted.

Carney rescued the American flag from the dying Soldier carrying it and despite himself being wounded several times Carney on his back pushed up the embankment to Ft. Wagner in Charleston harbor and planted the stars and stripes at the wall, inspiring fellow Union Soldiers of the regiment to secure the fort in their second attack. Carney received a battlefield promotion to SGT as he recovered from his wounds.

In 2008 with the candidacy and the election of Barak Obama, the 54th Massachusetts was reactivated into the state National Guard; its Soldier descendants of the Civil War 54th marched in the inaugural parade. The reactivated 54th serves as the ceremonial company of the Massachusetts National Guard 26th Infantry "Yankee" Division.


President Obama inaugural parade Jan. 20th 2009.


The reactivated 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment marches past the review stand in Pres. Obama's 1st inaugural parade. Two descendants of SGT Carney march with other certified descendants of original members of the 54th who fought during the Civil War. Potus Obama is seen in the upper right, right hand over heart. Members of the Joint Service Color Guard flank the review platform. An Army security officer is at the left in the photo.



Descendant members of the original Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Colored Infantry Regiment assemble at the Massachusetts Civil War Memorial that depicts the 54th.



The Memorial to the 54th features prominently the depiction of the regiment commander Colonel Robert Gould Shaw on horseback who was killed in action leading his troops in the first battle of Ft. Wagner. The Memorial is on Beacon Hill in Boston at the Boston Common Park and across Beacon Street and the State House.


SGT Carney is interred at Oak Grove Cemetery in the city of New Bedford where Carney and his family relocated from Virginia to become educated and after the Civil War successful in the whaling industry.
 
Impossible to do.

Your innocent and naive post is history in a vacuum. It is Dreamtime historiography.

Since the names were named and the statues put up to the "Lost Cause" there are and have been TWO "proper historic contexts." One is that the Magnificent South "shall rise again" and the other is the opposite, that the Confederacy was a racist WASP single party fascist state of slavers and traitors. This was before there was fascism itself.

The perpetual heart, mind and soul of the vile Confederacy of MTG and Laura Loomer -- to name just two hard core MAGA racist supremacist fascists -- exists fiercely and unrelentingly in the armband MAGAs led by Trump who have targeted DEI and who are purging immigrants of every kind -- with others to come. The lesson your post fails to recognize and to acquire is the lesson of America's core cultural and socioeconomic roots since 1619.

Indeed, the armed forces were not racially desegregated until 1947, by Potus Harry Truman the Democrat and democrat. Now Trump is purging DEI from them. This is the always ugly consistency of the perpetual and irreversible "Lost Cause" that is irrepressibly resurgent once again, this time for armband keeps.
 
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