By Patrick F. Cannon
In my brief and distinguished military career of two years, the Army managed to post me to five forts or other facilities. Three of the five were named after Civil War Confederate generals – Forts Benning, Gordon, and Hood. I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t know who they were named after and didn’t care. I did my basic training in the spring at Fort Benning, where it rained a lot. I did a lot of marching through red clay mud.
Also in Georgia, it was summer when I went to Signal School at Fort Gordon. It was hot and humid. At the end of our long march from barracks to school every morning, we were drenched with sweat. Ditto coming back. It was much later when I went to Fort Hood in Texas to help support armored force maneuvers. After a couple of weeks, they were called off due to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Years later, long after my Army service, I began to wonder why these forts had been named for Confederate generals who were, after all, traitors. In a spirit of reconciliation during Reconstruction, they were pardoned. In many countries, they would have been shot or hanged. They certainly wouldn’t have had Federal facilities named after them.
As it happens, both Forts Benning and Gordon were established in 1917, during World War I; Hood in 1942 during World War II. You should not be shocked to discover that the committees of Congress responsible for military affairs were headed by Southerners during those years. Or that so many Army forts were established in the south in the first place.
Perhaps recalling that these Confederate generals were complicit in the deaths of 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 of their own, far more deaths than the rest of our wars combined, Congress finally came to its senses and directed that these and other facilities would no longer be named after traitors. In 2023, Fort Benning became Fort Moore, named after General Hal Moore, a hero of the Viet Nam War and his wife Julia, an advocate for military wives. Fort Gordon was renamed Fort Eisenhower, after the former president and General of the Army; and Fort Hood was renamed Fort Cavazos in honor of General Richard Cavazos, who was a recipient of the Madal of Honor.
Wherein is it “woke” to rename United States military facilities after American heroes instead of rebellious traitors? Nevertheless, when President Trump regained power in 2025, his choice as Secretary of Defense, the Rambo wannabe Pete Hegseth, decided to return them to their former names. But in a shamelessly odious ploy, he claimed they were not being renamed for the Confederate generals, but for other veterans with the same name!
Fort Benning is not now named after General Henry Benning, but for Corporal Fred G. Benning, a World War I hero. Instead of being named for Confederate John G. Gordon, the fort is now named for Master Sargeant Gary Gordon, a Medal of Honor recipient who fought in Somalia. And Fort Hood is now named for World War I hero, Colonel Robert B. Hood, instead of John Bell Hood. It’s too bad there wasn’t a post named after a Confederate general named Cannon. It could have been renamed for me, Specialist Fourth Class Patrick F, Cannon, recipient of the Good Conduct Medal and who also earned a Sharpshooter badge!
This blatantly transparent tactic fooled no one, particularly the “Lost Cause” southerners who are such faithful Trump voters. The South shall rise again!
Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon
When the good people of Chalottesville, VA decided to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from its former Robert E. Lee Park, some one hundred “alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen and far-right militias” (the press is eloquent!) descended on the college town with tiki-torches to register their objection.
Counter protests ensued, and in the melee a young woman was run over by a car and killed.
Trump issued a statement assigning blame on both sides for the tragedy while condemning racism.
The press, in its usual strict adherence to facts, quoted the president as calling the white nationalists “very fine people.”
Thus unfolded the ongoing narrative of Trump as racist, fascist, reincarnation of Adolph the Mustache.
The Dems and their press had their day.
Now, nearly a decade later, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been indicted on charges of wire fraud, false statements and conspiracy to commit money laundering for funneling over $3 million in donated funds to individuals linked to the violent extremist groups it purportedly opposed.
In plain, non-legalistic English, they paid the KKK to hate blacks.
A trial is scheduled for February 2027, but since Robert E. Lee’s statue bit the dust, hundreds of other statues have toppled and thousands of once prominent figures have been purged.
The vandals have even gone after my fellow Ligurian Cristoforo for the audacity of opening the New World to exploration and civilization.
Columbus Day is now Indigenous Peoples Day. And Dems cry about the Gulf of America!
Lincoln himself (reminder: a Republican) has been criticized for not opposing slavery enough. His larger goal was a unified America. For that, he got a bullet to the head.
Other countries don’t deny the darker aspects of their history. Rome openly displays Mussolini’s monuments and images. It doesn’t mean he’s glorified, it means he WAS. And, for better or worse, Italian.
Should we feel the same about Robert E. Lee? Or should we revile him as a traitor? Lee was, after all, also an American, and prominent in our history To be sure, he defended slavery, but did Northerners and members of the Democrat Party not defend Jim Crow?
I don’t have much empathy for the South, even though half of my ancestry is southern (Italian). Italians weren’t treated vey well in the South (or the North, for that matter). Many were lynched. But it is history.
Purging the names of military men who in a formative era of our history fought for the Cavalier vision of America seems vindictive and petty. Sure, slavery was part of it and they were wrong to defend it. But why try to revive the conflict, like the SPLC, for partisan political gain?
Southern regions of Illinois and parts of other states like California have petitioned to secede from liberal oppression. Who can blame them? Alberta wants out of Canada. Call them all traitors and other bad names?
It’s an empty, lost cause. Gone with the wind!
A rose by any other name…….
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Vindictive to some is overdue to others. Many of these men had aadmirable qualities no doubt, but they did rebel against the United States. Where are Fort Grant and Fort Sherman? By the way, I know Johnny did it too.
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There is the matter of reconciliation and being gracious in victory. Japan, Italy and (to an extent) Germany are now our allies. Even Lee thought it wiser “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
It was 50 years after the Civil War ended before any posts were named after Confederates. In 1917 President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, to a standing ovation of hundreds of Confederate war veterans, declared “heroic things were done on both sides” of the bloody conflict. Should he have called them traitors? Was Wilson a racist? Probably. A politician? Definitely. The Army maintained segregation through WW II. Blacks fought for their country notwithstanding. You may have witnessed segregation when you served.
NAH, this name business is petty stuff and fundamentally political in the guise of virtue. Just put Christopher’s statue back in its rightful place. And no more land declarations, please.
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Heroic things are done on both sides in every war. And of course naming the forts after Confederates was political. It was still wrong. And yes, Wilson was a racist (not alone of course).
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