Why did they build so many forts in the South and why did they name them after the enemies?

[kentuck]

This is just my opinion, but I believe the reasons were two-fold: One, to maintain security in that part of the country. And two, as a compromise with Southerners, they named them after Confederate Generals.

Their primary motivation was to try to bring the country together after the Civil War. Holding the Union together was of utmost importance. African-Americans had little power and fewer allies than today. I doubt that there was widespread opposition? I may be wrong.

But, that time, and that perceived necessity, has now passed. It is time to re-name those military bases in a way that is more consistent with our history and our present reality, in my opinion.

The War is over. It's time to unite the country once again.

[LakeArenal]

1. Because the South never has acknowledged their defeat.

They are still fighting it.

[cwydro]

14. Oh please, I was raised in the south.

No one I knew every said anything like that.

Nor were we taught anything in school other than the war was wrong and a tragedy for the entire country.

[LakeArenal]

16. Oh please. My mom of 14 kids are from Texas. You heard it plenty.

You never heard “The South will rise again”

You never heard the rabid Confederate wavers talk about their “culture” being taken away from them?

The South is delighted they are taking the statues down?

Ever listen to The Night They Drove ole Dixie Down?Take a listen to this posted on DU today


https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213579703

[cwydro]

22. Nope, but I'm not from Texas. I know no rabid "confederate wavers" - whatever that is.

And there are idiots everywhere.

Do you know that The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down was not written by a southerner?

[Tom Traubert]

27. Nor is it sympathetic to the Confederacy.

Last edited Mon Jun 15, 2020, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)

It is a first-person account of the waning days of the Confederacy from the perspective of a southern soldier. To that end, it is perhaps empathetic. BTW, Robbie Robertson is not only Canadian, but he’s half Mohawk and had a father who was Jewish. https://americansongwriter.com/band-night-drove-old-dixie/

[cwydro]

28. Indeed.

Some seem to have missed this.

I'm still a great fan of The Band.

[benld74]

2. Reason I read today was

Large bases required large swaths on land.
Southern areas had those
Enticement included naming rights

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

5. The weather played a part as well

When the bases were established, milder winters of the south were preferred over the harsher ones in the north.

[Brother Buzz]

10. There were large swaths of open land just about everywhere

But the south and the west provided a climate suitable for year-round training.

[Grins]

25. The reason? Same as it has always been: MONEY!

And the rules of the House and Senate. Money had to be obligated and ALL the committee chairs were conservative southern democrats that made up “the solid south”.

“You want that base, do you, General? Well, just where do you plan on putting it?”

If the answer was not, “In your state, Senator”, that request would have been tabled for another time...

And not just military bases either. Why do you think NASA launches out of Florida but controls out of Houston? Money. And jobs.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. It's a way to give Yankee socialist money to failed Republican states, that's why they love it.

.

They love socialism, they especially love it when it comes from them thar Yankees.

Why did they keep the names? Because they refuse to adapt, much like the Taliban.

.

[unblock]

4. after the election of 1876 and the withdrawal of northern enforcement of reconstruction,

the south made a concerted effort to reassert white dominance by raising monuments to confederate generals and politicians, dedicating memorials and buildings and forts to confederate soldiers, and generally raising the profile of former slavers and their supporters.

this was done largely to send a message of oppression to black people who had dared to try to act like they had actual freedom.

of course then there was also the poll tax and literacy tests and the kkk....

that's the "heritage" and "southern way of life" the southern bigots always go on about. they try to make it sound like it's all about defending sipping mint juleps on the porch, but of course it's really about a hierarchical view of society with whites and men on top and blacks and women on the bottom.

[Lithos]

6. There are ten bases named after Confederates

All are in the South. 4 were constructed during WW1, the rest in WW2. They were built in the South because the all-round weather is better than the north and because land was generally cheap. The names were chosen in the spirit of reconciliation. This was a period of rampant racism in the US, so quite a lot of hard discussions were avoided to accommodate cheap political wins with local politicians.

But to your point, I am not defending the names, just explaining what happened. I agree, rename them.

[PatSeg]

7. The weather is warmer in southern states

so that training programs aren't as limited as they would be during northern winters. Also, the economies of many southern states have been seriously depressed and building military bases and federal installations helps bring commerce and much needed jobs to the south. It would seem that naming some of them after Civil War leaders was a form of appeasement.

[mobeau69]

8. Senate Seniority Rule and the one party South

[Dennis Donovan]

9. Powerful Southern Senators in the 20th Century needed to extend honor onto their traitorous grandads

Because their grandads were traitorous scum and they wanted to "clean up" their own histories a little bit, they rewrote history to romanticize the "cause" as a "gallant effort to preserve states rights."

And, because they were powerful Senators after all, they got the lion's share of military installations to-be-built for their own states and, likely, naming rights to them as well.

[LeftInTX]

11. Many were established during WWII

Fort Hood
Fort Polk
Fort Gordon
Fort A.P. Hill
Fort Pickett
Fort Rucker

Hence that old "reconstruction myth" doesn't hold up.
One reason for locating new bases in the south was: It was easier to build larger forts there than in in the north, which was more urban. I know there were lots of small temporary camps set up in the north during WWII, but they mostly disbanded after the war.
There was no reason to name them after confederates during WWII. Would Texans not want Ft Hood, if it was named after someone else. (Hood wasn't from Texas, but he commandeered the Texas Brigade in the Civil War...He was born in Kentucky, buried in Louisiana, hence he would be popular with Civil War buffs, but not the general population of Texas, because if he isn't buried in Texas or doesn't have a "childhood home" in Texas, he ain't a Texan)

Established during WWI
Ft. Bragg
Ft. Lee
Ft Benning
Camp Beauregard

According to Wikipedia, there are no posts named for confederates built before WWI.

[dawg day]

18. Racists-- Woodrow Wilson comes to mind

Even northerner racists wanted to pretend to venerate the confederacy. It allowed them to pretend that racism was connected to a "noble cause."

Horrific. Good information here, thanks!

[ms liberty]

12. I doubt many today knew.

I didn't and I am a 61 year old native southern woman. I've been on some of those bases, had friends and relatives stationed at some of those bases, and I don't think it's ever come up. I would have guessed that they were named after some military somebodies but that's as far as I would have gone.

[Shell_Seas]

13. Blame the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

[dawg day]

15. There's a great book called Lee Considered by Allan Nolan

Which explores the question, why did the country decide to venerate the loser/traitor general rather than US Grant?

(Partly, i submit, is the Instagram effect-- Robert E Lee was SOOOOOO dreamy handsome straight from central casting.)

His main point, as I recall, was that there was a desire to placate southerners, to let them keep their "glorious cause," to keep them from rising again--

But also because racists in the north too didn't want the newly un-enslaved to have equal rights, and this effectively put that off for more than a century.

This is also why "Reconstruction"-- which empowered African Americans for a brief moment in the south-- has been presented in so many US History classes as a terrible trauma inflicted on those poor lost-cause heroes, the white southerners.

Infuriating. And we're seeing the effects of it now.

Imagine if Germany still had statues of Hitler and Goehring and Himmler in towns all over the country.
Or if in the former East Germany, they insisted on keeping all their statues of Stalin and their history books saying the USSR was great.

That's what we have let the south do. And even saying "the south" perpetuates the idea that only the white southerners count, when there were and are many black citizens in those states who have hung in there despite being persecuted and maltreated. "The south" is an American region, but some white southerners still want it to be "their country".

[cornball 24]

17. IMHO, it was a recruitment tool for the military. Build those bases in the south, name them

after confederate generals and there were/are some southerners who will join up for the aforementioned reasons.

[hack89]

19. Large tracts of cheap land with good weather for year round training. nt

[sarisataka]

20. The simplest answer

Is most often correct.

Camp Ripley in Minnesota was used for a short time as a training center in WW2. After one winter, training was moved to southern bases and the Camp became an induction center.

The security/ reconstruction argument does not hold up when compared to the dates the Forts were built.

[LeftInTX]

24. The name Ft Hood is annoying

Established during WWII

Hood was not a Texan. He was born and raised in Kentucky. Assigned to the US Cavalry in Texas and then headed a Texas Brigade for CSA. After the military, he lived and died in New Orleans. No real Texas pride here, if he didn't stick around after the war...

[Baked Potato]

23. This here.

[greenjar_01]

21. Because terrorist insurgents continued fighting their war well into the early 1900's

and essentially won a political victory in doing so.

They should have been put down with much more force, rounded up, hanged, and thrown in prison in far larger numbers than they were.

[kentuck]

26. I agree that the war went on well into the 1900's for many people in the South.

Perhaps, with some, still going on today?

But, it would have been much easier to say "round 'em up and hang "em" than to actually do it.

Lincoln's dream of uniting the nation was always in the thoughts of most of our leaders, in my opinion.

[malaise]

29. It was a stupid move

as bad allowing this monster to be President