Why does Fort Bragg exist?

Great Debates
1

I know perfectly well why there is a major Army base in North Carolina. It is most likely on the short list of the most important military bases anywhere in the world: it is home to the famed 82nd Airborne and the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, among other units. It has more soldiers than any other military base anywhere. The importance of the base cannot be overestimated.

But it is named for Braxton Bragg, who is really quite an interesting character. As a captain in the U.S. Army, he had one outstanding day: during the Mexican-American War, an enemy force was on the verge of pummeling the units under the command of Colonel Jefferson Davis. Captain Bragg maneuvered his artillery to repulse the Mexican attack, allowing Col. Davis the time to regroup and ultimately win the day. When Fort Bragg was established as Camp Bragg during World War I, I can see that there was some kind of logic of naming the artillery training range after an artillery officer who had a little bit of fame for his day of heroism.

But let’s expand the scope of who Bragg is. He was an asshole and probably mentally unstable. At one point during his Army career, he served as both a company commander and the company quartermaster, who would dole out supplies and the like. He literally got into an argument with himself, when he wrote a request as company commander asking for certain supplies. The quartermaster rejected the request. The commander, then infuriated, wrote back demanding the supplies. The quartermaster refused to give in, rejecting the commander’s requests. Remember: he was arguing with himself. The commander then elevated the dispute to his superior officer for adjudication. Historians seem to agree that his issues were not silly “Catch 22” hijinks that Milo Minderbinder got into – there are plenty of theories that he was suffering from bipolar depression or other more serious psychological afflictions, and may well have been an opiate addict that adding more fuel to the fire.

Bragg was also noted for his contempt for other soliders, both below him and above him. One biography of him is titled, “Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy.” Some of the animosity appears to be related to his mental stability, such as the time in which he stopped his unit’s retreat during the Mexican-American War to send a soldier into the line of fire to collect the sword of a fallen comrade, because the sword was government property and and Bragg thought that there was a serious obligation to recover it, no matter what the risk was.

Which, of course, brings us to his service as a general in the Confederate army. I’m not going to dwell on the obvious racist implications of this service, as they are self-evident. But I will comment that he was a particularly poor commander, which seems to be the strong consensus (but perhaps not totally unanimous) verdict of historians and his contemporaries. He was ultimately relieved of field command in 1863 to be an adviser to President Jefferson Davis.

So why do we have a major military based named after this guy? Even setting aside his treason to the United States, his military record is quite poor, though punctuated by one day of glory.

Let’s contrast this to General Matthew Ridgway. He is probably the most respected Army general of the last century that most of you have likely never heard of. He commanded the 82nd Airborne at D-Day, fought at the Battle of the Bulge, was a critical leader in the formation of NATO’s early military capabilities, is often credited with turning the Korean War to the allied side, became the Chief of Staff of the Army, and is probably universally regarded as one of the most inspiring leaders of his time.

Sure seems like Fort Ridgway is a hell of a lot more appropriate than Fort Bragg.

2

Most Army bases are in the South, and most of them are named after Confederates. It was one way to ease cultural tensions and bring more economic life back into a region of the country that was utterly destroyed in the Civil War.

You’re right he wasn’t much of a hero, even ignoring his act of treason. Maybe they just liked the sound of his name? That or, like Cape Canaveral, by the time it stopped being a training camp, the locals were used to the name and didn’t want it to change. Besides, Bragg was a local, born in North Carolina. So like you said, it probably made some amount of sense when they first named it.

But people have a real problem with name changes. Old people are still pissed that Mumbai and Beijing aren’t Bombay and Peking anymore. And look at the backlash against Catelyn Jenner and Chelsea Manning. And the aforementioned Cape Canaveral. Once people are used to a name, no matter how awful, good luck getting it changed.

3

I’m so glad we Californians don’t have to deal with this sort of stuff.

Oops. Ft Bragg, CA.

Double Oops. Confederate Corners, CA.

4

I’m not aware of any of this applying to Fort Bragg, other than it was upgraded from Camp Bragg to Fort Bragg three years after it was established.

At least that town can legitimately claim that it was named for the hero of the Mexican-American War, since it was established prior to the Civil War and Bragg’s embarrassing soldiering therein.

5

One of his key subordinates, that he regularly argued with, made significant contributions to Bragg’s failures. (The crazy leading the profoundly incompetent is not a recipe for victory in battle. :p) His name was Leonidas Polk. Polk was appointed to relatively high command mostly based on his political influence with Jefferson Davis. Guess who else still has a major Army base named after them?

Some other notable generals from the civil war that also had installations named after them despite a reputation that was less than stellar at the time of the naming - McClellan, Burnside, Butler, Custer, and Pickett.

A lot of names got used for installations in the build up to WWI and later WWII. Prominent generals had a decent chance of getting something named after them even if they weren’t very good generals. Many of those installations are no longer with us or are relatively small. Some became very important. There’s a big element of chance in that. At least chance didn’t result in the home of the Armor/Cavalry branch ever being Fort “Kill Cavalry” Kilpatrick.

6

Just for completeness, there are 26 US Navy ships named for rebel leaders or victories.

7

It is one of the weirdnesses of history that so many U.S. bases are named not just after Confederate commanders, but after BAD ones. I looked up a list of “largest bases” and while I am not sure of the accuracy of the largishness of each base it seems pretty reasonable.

The largest base is Fort Bragg; we’ve talked about him.

The second largest is allegedly Fort Campbell. William Campbell was a Unionist but was in the armny for just a few weeks, so he’s an odd choice.

The third largest base is Fort Hood, named after John Bell Hood. Hood was a pretty good officer up to a point, fighting very effectively at Chickamauga, but was Peter Principled into levels of command he just could not wrap his head around. He was asked to defend Atlanta and did a dreadful job. Hood then decided to lead the Army of Tennessee on the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, an offensive so ill advised that his Union opponents anticipated he would do it and were positively overjoyed at the idea; Hood bumbled his army into staggering defeats and it was effectively destroyed. It was one of the most catastrophic offensives in the history of American arms.

Joint Base Lewis-McChird is named after the Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame, so okay, and William McChord, a prominent Army aviator in the interwar years, so sure.

Fort Benning is named after Henry Benning, another rebel. Benning had the misfortune of serving under John Bell Hood, but he did fight well in many battles.

8

Fort Bragg was apparently named for Braggs actiosn during the Mexican-American War. “In the summer of 1857, 1st Lt. Horatio G. Gibson, then serving at the Presidio of San Francisco, established a military post on the Reservation, approximately a mile and a half north of the Noyo River, and named it for his former commanding officer Capt. Braxton Bragg, who later became a General in the Army of the Confederacy.[10] The official date of the establishment of the fort was June 11, 1857; and its purpose was to maintain order on the reservation.”

So it wasnt name for a Confederate General, it was named for him before he became a traitor.

9

A lot of bases are named for local hometown heros. With the emphasis on hometown over hero. Even if the best hero that county ever produced was barely kinda mediocre on a national scale he was still the best from that county. So that’s who they named the facility after.

A natural consequence will be that areas that were once in the CSA will have lots of hometown heros who were CSA veterans. After all, almost the entire “professional” part of the CSA was drawn from the ranks of the US military such as it then was. Many of whom were vets of the many ongoing wars before the CSA emerged.

Further, the former CSA and adjoining states have relatively more current military facilities than do the more distant states. For a lot of reasons, but a big one being the decent year round training weather during WWII.

Last of all, bases named after a person are rarely renamed to a non-person or another person. So some facilities that pre-date the CSA are still wearing what later became a notso hotso name.
When you put all these factors together it’s pretty obvious we’ll end up with the pattern we see. Lots of southern bases still named for southern / CSA mediocrities.
If we get a big enough backlash to the current racist / Trumpist ructions, we might in fact decide to send all the CSA memorials, including Federal facility names, right down the memory hole.

10

Woodrow Wilson, the president at that time, was an unreconstructed Southerner and a virulent racist even by the standard of his time.

11

Honestly, this one story alone is sufficient reason to commemorate him.

A man so dedicated to doing his job well, that he ends up legitimately arguing with himself when two of those jobs have fundamentally opposed requirements? That’s freaking hilarious!

12

Which has nothing to do with the question posed by this thread: why should one of the most important military bases in the world honor a general who was terrible at his job?

Had you actually read my OP, you would have seen that my criticism of General Bragg is based on his ineptitude, not his racial views.

13

But he wasnt terrible at the time the fcity was named for him. He did pretty good in the Mexican American War. Now, why the fuck the Army named a fort after him later…

14

Yeah, I think the Army tries to name the bases after generals from that area or known locally in that area- Fort Hood in Texas, Ft Bragg in N. Carolina, Ft. Ord in California, Ft. Hunter Liggett in CA, Ft. Leavenworth in KS, etc…

Not all are named after local types, but a lot are.

15

Spelling it out in greater detail: Wilson was a racist, brought up to revere the Lost Cause. He and his party were dependent on the votes of racists brought up to revere the Lost Cause. Bragg was a native son of North Carolina, and naming a base there after him was an easy political plum to offer, particularly after enough time had elapsed that the details of his service would have been remembered by few people. When the major expansion of the base occurred in and after WWII, there was no political value in offending the North Carolina congressional delegation by telling them that their local hero was a loser, nor has such a time come to pass since then.

16

I had no idea who Bragg was and that he had such a checkered history. But really I don’t care if there is a military base with his name. People will take offense and complain at length about anything. Times were much different back then, but even if that wasn’t a factor if you dig deep enough in anyone’s past and I’m sure you can find something to be offended about.

Should we erase Nixon from the list of presidents because he resigned in disgrace? Should we quit buying Mercedes, VWs, Porsches, and Mitsubishis because they were part of the Axis war machine? If I name my son after my favorite uncle, and my uncle turns out to be a sex offender, should I go to court and change my son’s name?

Fort Bragg is what it is, why go through the time and effort and expense to name it something else?

17

I’m not sure you’re following my point here – it has nothing to do with people taking offense. It has to do with Bragg being someone who was a crappy general. Why honor crappy generals?

No, no, and that’s your call.

Because I pointed out someone – Matthew Ridgway – who is an incredible hero, but is hardly known in popular culture, and also has a very strong connection to the military units at Fort Bragg, but never received the honors I think should be accorded to someone of his stature.

Frankly, when I read arguments like yours, I think that you are defending Confederates simply because they were Confederates, and not thinking for one second over whether they deserve to be honored, regardless of what side they fought for in the war.

But seriously, why do you like failed generals so much?

18

I am not particularly a fan of any generals, I spend close to 0% of my time thinking about them. I’m more of a fan of not taking things so seriously.

19

Strange that you’re so opinionated on something you don’t care about. Seems to me like for someone who doesn’t think about things, the proposition that “we should honor people who do good things, and not honor people who are incompetent” would be immediately recognized as reasonable.

20

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” seems pretty uncontroversial at first glance.

The problem of course is that some people will consider anything less than perfection to be broken and therefore in need of fixing while others will consider anything less than an actively spewing radioactive meltdown to not be broken enough to bother fixing.

Smells like control-z is in the latter camp. At least on this topic.