By gum, the Army is disrespecting the rebel generals who lost the Civil War
On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged that, if elected president, he would rename Fort Liberty, restoring Braxton Bragg’s name to honor. “It’s an iconic name and an iconic base, and we’re not going to let political correctness run amok in North Carolina,” DeSantis said at the North Carolina GOP Convention. The next day, Mike Pence sounded the same notes at the same event, saying, “We will end the political correctness in the hallways of the Pentagon, and North Carolina will once again be home to Fort Bragg.”
There’s no word yet on whether Fort Polk was “iconic” enough to deserve this level of outrage, but presumably, that will come when DeSantis, Pence, and other Republicans campaign in Louisiana.
Bragg was “widely considered among the least successful military leaders” of the Civil War, according to Military.com. He was so unpopular that a 2016 book about him had the title “Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy.” By contrast, Leonidas Polk, the general after whom Fort Johnson was previously named, was extremely popular with his troops—but, like Bragg, known as a poor military leader. His “military qualities were lacking,” the American Battlefield Trust politely puts it. He had “an ineptitude for logistics,” according to NCpedia.
Even if you set aside the whole “fought against the United States to preserve slavery” thing (which you emphatically should not), are these the generals you want your Army bases to honor?
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