Post by less1brain on Jul 29, 2020 12:53:05 GMT -8
Actually, we're down to 4 forts and a base:
Fort Gordon: John Brown Gordon was a politician through and through and, just 29 when the Civil War began, initially got all of his promotions by getting elected by his troops. Lee and Early eventually promoted him to Brigadier General and later Major General and he showed a very aggressive style that sometimes worked very well and sometimes resulted in disaster. He was shot 5 times in one battle and 11 times overall, which is pretty impressive, especially since he often kept fighting when wounded. He kept getting transferred between Lee and Early and is sometimes credited for participating in victories that were actually major losses by Lee. After the war, he became a US Senator and Governor of Georgia and was a major architect of Jim Crow laws. But at least he was a talented officer.
Fort Benning: Henry Benning was from Georgia and this Fort is in Georgia. Otherwise, he had an unmitigated track record of disaster, participating at Antietam (Sharpsburg), Gettysburg, Chickamauga and the Second Battle of the Wilderness, often described as a victory by Lee, but which was in fact an almost total disaster. I doubt any of this was Gordon's fault, he was just unlucky, but he might've been the most virulent and outspoken racist in the CSA. He wanted the entire country converted into slave states, per Justice Tawney's ruling in the Dredd Scott case.
Fort A.P. Hill: A.P. Hill was a superb brigade and divisional commander who made Jackson look like a better General than he really was and took Jackson's place as a corps commander and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia improved a lot, even though after Gettysburg and the massive bloodletting that occurred between April, 1864-September, 1864, Lee finally, for the first time, was truly more and more outnumbered and even more so outgeneraled by US Grant (Lee's constant ejaculation about Grant was "He's humbugged me again!" since Grant fooled him every time they did battle. Hill actually went to West Point with Jackson and they truly hated each other and their feud continued until Jackson died (maybe Hill had him assassinated?). Hill himself was killed outside of Petersburg, Virginia. Yes, Hill was a traitor who resigned his commission to serve his state (Virginia) and attacked the United States and its Constitution, but FWIW like Lee he opposed secession.
Fort Polk: Leonidas Polk was also a horrible general who unfortunately for the CSA didn't get killed until 1864. He was the only General who fought badly on the first day of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing). He was another politician without military experience and proved it by making Bragg look awesome by comparison. I think he literally made one disaster after another for every general he served under and got a lot of his own men killed for no good reason at all. Vomitous in the extreme, from both his racist view and utter incompetence as a general.
Fort Rucker: Probably the oddest choice in fort naming. Edmund Rucker was a bishop in the Episcopalian Church. He started out as an engineer, became an artillery officer, punished Confederate draft dodgers and finally became a Colonel of Cavalry under Forrest, but the CSA's Congress never confirmed his brevet rank of General, so he was actually just a Colonel who never participated in a winning battle and hardly participated in any battles at all. He was a friend of Forrest's and became both an early KKK member and a very wealthy man (as engineers in those days often did) after the war. He did wind up in Alabama eventually and lived almost to the age of 90, 60 years after the Civil War ended, so I guess that's why a fort in Alabama is named after him.
I guess you can say that Lee and Hill had a lot of talent (with a lot of advantages of terrain that helped them be far more successful than their talent merited) and Gordon was very brave and had talent too (but was very unlucky in the battles he fought in).
But their morals were another matter.
US Grant is the only general in the known history of the world (i.e., his exploits could be proven by actual multiple records) to have "destroyed" 4 armies (meaning they ceased to be an effective fighting force) and the next best folks destroyed 2. But Fort Grant was put in Arizona and is now a state prison. So Grant has no fort named after him at all. The Joint Forces Quarterly, perhaps biased, has declared him the greatest general in history (Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, might disagree). There's also no fort named for "Black Jack" Pershing (his actual nickname has been sanitized and came about because his fellow officers hated him for insisting on sleeping and eating with his African-American troops during the Spanish-American War and he was also an early advocate for integrating the military and substantially increasing the number of African-Americans admitted to West Point). There isn't even a Fort (Omar) Bradley or Fort Eisenhower!
Wow.
Fort Gordon: John Brown Gordon was a politician through and through and, just 29 when the Civil War began, initially got all of his promotions by getting elected by his troops. Lee and Early eventually promoted him to Brigadier General and later Major General and he showed a very aggressive style that sometimes worked very well and sometimes resulted in disaster. He was shot 5 times in one battle and 11 times overall, which is pretty impressive, especially since he often kept fighting when wounded. He kept getting transferred between Lee and Early and is sometimes credited for participating in victories that were actually major losses by Lee. After the war, he became a US Senator and Governor of Georgia and was a major architect of Jim Crow laws. But at least he was a talented officer.
Fort Benning: Henry Benning was from Georgia and this Fort is in Georgia. Otherwise, he had an unmitigated track record of disaster, participating at Antietam (Sharpsburg), Gettysburg, Chickamauga and the Second Battle of the Wilderness, often described as a victory by Lee, but which was in fact an almost total disaster. I doubt any of this was Gordon's fault, he was just unlucky, but he might've been the most virulent and outspoken racist in the CSA. He wanted the entire country converted into slave states, per Justice Tawney's ruling in the Dredd Scott case.
Fort A.P. Hill: A.P. Hill was a superb brigade and divisional commander who made Jackson look like a better General than he really was and took Jackson's place as a corps commander and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia improved a lot, even though after Gettysburg and the massive bloodletting that occurred between April, 1864-September, 1864, Lee finally, for the first time, was truly more and more outnumbered and even more so outgeneraled by US Grant (Lee's constant ejaculation about Grant was "He's humbugged me again!" since Grant fooled him every time they did battle. Hill actually went to West Point with Jackson and they truly hated each other and their feud continued until Jackson died (maybe Hill had him assassinated?). Hill himself was killed outside of Petersburg, Virginia. Yes, Hill was a traitor who resigned his commission to serve his state (Virginia) and attacked the United States and its Constitution, but FWIW like Lee he opposed secession.
Fort Polk: Leonidas Polk was also a horrible general who unfortunately for the CSA didn't get killed until 1864. He was the only General who fought badly on the first day of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing). He was another politician without military experience and proved it by making Bragg look awesome by comparison. I think he literally made one disaster after another for every general he served under and got a lot of his own men killed for no good reason at all. Vomitous in the extreme, from both his racist view and utter incompetence as a general.
Fort Rucker: Probably the oddest choice in fort naming. Edmund Rucker was a bishop in the Episcopalian Church. He started out as an engineer, became an artillery officer, punished Confederate draft dodgers and finally became a Colonel of Cavalry under Forrest, but the CSA's Congress never confirmed his brevet rank of General, so he was actually just a Colonel who never participated in a winning battle and hardly participated in any battles at all. He was a friend of Forrest's and became both an early KKK member and a very wealthy man (as engineers in those days often did) after the war. He did wind up in Alabama eventually and lived almost to the age of 90, 60 years after the Civil War ended, so I guess that's why a fort in Alabama is named after him.
I guess you can say that Lee and Hill had a lot of talent (with a lot of advantages of terrain that helped them be far more successful than their talent merited) and Gordon was very brave and had talent too (but was very unlucky in the battles he fought in).
But their morals were another matter.
US Grant is the only general in the known history of the world (i.e., his exploits could be proven by actual multiple records) to have "destroyed" 4 armies (meaning they ceased to be an effective fighting force) and the next best folks destroyed 2. But Fort Grant was put in Arizona and is now a state prison. So Grant has no fort named after him at all. The Joint Forces Quarterly, perhaps biased, has declared him the greatest general in history (Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, might disagree). There's also no fort named for "Black Jack" Pershing (his actual nickname has been sanitized and came about because his fellow officers hated him for insisting on sleeping and eating with his African-American troops during the Spanish-American War and he was also an early advocate for integrating the military and substantially increasing the number of African-Americans admitted to West Point). There isn't even a Fort (Omar) Bradley or Fort Eisenhower!
Wow.
