NBC affiliate WFMY in Greensboro, N.C., reports:
NORTH CAROLINA, USA — The controversy surrounding the name of North Carolina’s Fort Liberty is back in the spotlight following remarks by the newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
In 2022, the U.S. military spent over $2 million to rename Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty, distancing itself from Confederate ties as Fort Bragg was originally named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg. However, during his first day on the job Monday, Hegseth referred to the base by its former name.
“Every moment that I’m here, I’m thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, Fort Benning, and Fort Bragg, on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers,” Hegseth told reporters as he entered the Pentagon.
The mention of Fort Benning also stood out, as the Georgia base was renamed Fort Moore in 2023, another step in the Pentagon’s efforts to remove Confederate associations from military assets.
Hegseth’s remarks align with a promise President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail in Fayetteville, North Carolina three months ago. “Should we change the name from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg?” Trump asked a crowd of supporters, receiving loud cheers. “So here’s what we do: we get elected, I’m doing it. I’m doing it.”
I am a retired Army artillery officer. I served a tour at Ft Bragg in the latter 1980s. I am very definitely a political conservative, but I cannot agree with reverting the name back to Bragg. Here is why:
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| Confederate General Braxton Bragg |
So far, so good. Bragg's record as a US Army officer was in fact stellar. But another important reason the camp was named after him was, frankly, to appease Southerners while the US was at war in Europe. In 1918, there was still a large number of Civil War veterans, Union and Confederate, still living, and to their children and grandchildren, that was was not old history, far removed in time or space. So, the camp was named after a CSA general who conveniently was an NC native and Army artillery officer.
Please note that there are no military installations outside the old CSA that were named after CSA figures. I will also note that Gen. Bragg was a truly dismal battlefield general, which IMO is another reason not to revert to using his name.
I also think, however, that Fort Liberty is a nitwit name. Find a post-Civil War American military hero or renowned wartime commander and use that.
2. There are some hard truths about the CSA. I was born and raised in the Deep South. My family's roots in Middle Tenn. go back to just after the Revolutionary War. I have ancestral family members who fought (and some died) for the CSA on both my mom's and dad's side (also for the Union on my dad's). Alexander Stephens, vice president of the CSA, was my wife's great-great grandfather's brother.
I take no back seat to anyone for Southern heritage and upbringing.
Like probably most native Southerners of my generation, I was raised being taught that the real reasons for the Southern states' secession was to preserve states’ rights and that the northern economic lobby was choking the South's economy with high tariffs on Southern goods.
Slavery? Well, it was in the mix somewhere, but slavery was not the real reason for secession.
It is a lie, pure and simple.
The states’ rights and tariffs arguments are entirely absent from Southern apologia until after the Civil War. In 1860 and before, no one in the South was using those topics to justify secession. Furthermore, in 1860 federal tariffs on Southern goods were lower than they had been since 1816.
Why did the Southern states secede? To protect slavery, period.
Read the 11 seceded states' actual acts of secession, beginning with South Carolina's, and you will see that slavery was the sole reason for secession. South Carolina's act makes this very unambiguous: protection of slavery was the only topic presented as driving secession. Same with Mississippi. And the others.
The Confederate States of America was founded to do one thing only: to preserve the power of one class of people to literally own as chattel property another class of people. There is no other reason the CSA existed.
We are long, long past the time where any figure of the CSA should be honored with naming any federal property after him.
I wrote at greater length upon the CSA's secession and raison d'etre here: "Confederate monuments: So what? Now What?"
