Trump and Hegseth are doing our enemies’ work with their Confederate renaming ruse
Biden removed the names of Confederate generals from nine Army installations. Trump has restored those Confederate names, but claims it is to honor soldiers who happen to have the same last names.
If I were to walk into a Berlin bar and state that America was honoring World War I German Gens. Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg, as well as World War II Gens. Erwin Rommel, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Albert Kesselring, I’d immediately be thrown out for being drunk.
The same would happen in Tokyo if I declared that America was going to honor Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku, the military genius behind the Pearl Harbor attack.
However, America did exactly that when it named American military installations after Confederate generals who fought against the United States.
American military deaths during WWI totaled 116,000, and 405,000 during WWII. Those 521,000 deaths are dwarfed by those from the Civil War. Mid-19th century records aren’t 100% accurate, but current estimates of the Civil War’s dead range between 620,000 and 698,000.
President Joe Biden removed the names of Confederate generals from nine Army installations. President Donald Trump has restored these Confederate names, but, in a feint, his staffers combed through the records of soldiers who served at those bases and happened to have the same last names as the Confederate generals.
I’m unsure how much American history Trump absorbed during his five years at the New York Military Academy, but I would’ve hoped he learned that the United States Army was attacked by Confederate soldiers in a war whose death toll is greater than that of all our other wars.
Confederate soldiers weren’t leaderless insurrectionists. They were commanded by Leonidas Polk (1827), Robert E. Lee (1829), George Edward Pickett (1846), A.P. Hill (1847), John Bell Hood (1853), and 179 other U.S. Military Academy graduates. These soldiers, trained at America’s premier military college, used that training and experience gained from Army deployments to attack, kill, and maim their fellow Americans.
Not every Confederate general distinguished himself in battle. Civil War historian Steven E. Woodworth described Confederate Lt. Gen. Polk’s death as “one of the worst shots fired for the Union cause during the entire course of the war,” as “Polk’s incompetence and willful disobedience had consistently hamstrung Confederate operations west of the Appalachians …”
Maj. Gen. Pickett ordered a futile charge at Gettysburg, resulting in the loss of half his soldiers. In February 1864, Pickett’s forces captured 22 North Carolinians fighting in the United States Army. Instead of treating them as POWs, Pickett ordered their hanging as deserters. When the war ended, fearing prosecution for his war crimes, Pickett fled to Canada.
Most Americans will believe that Fort Lee honors Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy’s top general, not Fitz Lee, an African American Medal of Honor recipient the Trump administration has claimed in its name-restoral ruse.
Keeping Gen. Lee’s name alive is a complete affront to the Americans who died during the Civil War, the millions who have proudly served in our country’s armed forces, and to the men and women who currently defend America. Lee wasn’t just any West Point graduate, but a distinguished United States Army officer whose stellar career included fighting in the Mexican-American War, serving as West Point’s superintendent, and leading the Marines to repel the 1859 attack on Harpers Ferry and capturing insurrectionist John Brown. Lee’s leadership led to the deaths of over 600,000 Americans.
Perhaps someone should explain to Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that in most countries, Lee would’ve been executed as a traitor and his name forever vilified.
The most egregious example of our Army’s 2025 Reign of Terror occurred in Alabama. Biden had changed the installation’s name from Fort Rucker — named after Confederate Gen. Edmund Rucker — to Fort Novosel. Michael J. Novosel Sr.’s biography is one of unstinting patriotism during WWII and Korea, after which he served as an Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel.
Realizing he wouldn’t be allowed to fly in Vietnam, Novosel resigned from the Air Force and enlisted in the Army at a lower rank. Novosel flew 2,543 helicopter missions in Vietnam, where he earned a Medal of Honor after rescuing 5,589 soldiers half his age.
Trump replaced Novosel with aviation Capt. Edward W. Rucker Jr. Rucker had one momentous flying day during WWI for which he was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross. So the Confederate general’s name now lives on; Novosel’s doesn’t.
The self-sacrifice of Master Sgt. Gary Gordon in rescuing fellow Delta Force members at Mogadishu, Somalia, merited his posthumously awarded Medal of Honor. Fort Eisenhower has been renamed Fort Gordon, which “happens” to also be the surname of Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon.
I’m not denigrating Master Sgt. Gordon’s self-sacrifice, but his military contributions aren’t comparable with five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike commanded millions of troops while uniting a multicountry military force to defeat Germany during WWII. The Confederate general’s name now lives on; Eisenhower’s doesn’t.
The intelligence services of Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea couldn’t have conceived a better master plan to further sow disunity in our armed forces and our nation.
Trump and Hegseth are doing the work of our enemies.
Shame on them, and shame on military officers at the highest levels who don’t actively oppose this continued glorification of the Lost Cause.
Paul L. Newman is an amateur historian of African American history. He has written a miniseries docudrama on the African American civil rights movement of the first half of the 20th century.