Trump moves to restore Confederate names on 3 Va. Army bases
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President Trump at Fort Bragg this week. Photo: Travis Long/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
President Trump announced this week that he wants to restore the original names of seven Army bases, including three in Virginia, that once honored Confederate leaders.
Why it matters: A federal law bans U.S. military bases from being named after Confederates. But the Trump administration is working around it by designating the bases after other people with the same names or initials.
Catch up quick: Trump vetoed that bill in 2020 but was overridden in a bipartisan vote from Congress.
- Then in 2023, Virginia's Fort Lee became Fort Gregg-Adams, named after two Black officers — including the first Black woman in the Women's Army Corps and a three-star general.
- Fort A.P. Hill, named after the same A.P. Hill who once had a Richmond statue dedicated to him, became Fort Walker, after the Army's first female surgeon.
- Fort Pickett was redesignated as Fort Barfoot, the first Army base in the U.S. to be named after a Native American soldier.
By the numbers: The cost of renaming nine bases honoring Confederates was estimated to total nearly $40 million, per the Military Times.
- To change the names of the three Virginia bases: at least $4.7 million, per a congressional report estimate.
Zoom in: It's unclear how much it'll cost to change them back, but here's who they're technically named after now, per the Army:
Fort Lee won't be honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who had the largest Confederate monument in the country before its 2021 removal in Richmond.
- Instead, it'll be named after Pvt. Fitz Lee, a Black soldier from Dinwiddie who fought in the Spanish-American war.
Fort A.P. Hill is now named after Pvt. Bruce Anderson, 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn and Lt. Col. Edward Hill.
- Edward Hill established Shirley, Virginia's first plantation in Charles City, where Robert E. Lee's mother was born.
- Pinn was a Black Union Army soldier from Ohio who received a Medal of Honor — as was Anderson, who was born in New York.
Fort Pickett — initially named after a Confederate general who committed war crimes, per the congressional report — is now named after a World War II soldier from Louisiana: Vernon Pickett.