In its latest move to undo diversity efforts, the Army announced this week that it had found a way to restore names of seven installations that long worshipped Confederate heroes.
But in the case of Fort Lee in Princely, George County, Virginia, the Pentagon did it with a strange twist.
Rather than restoring the name of General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander who defended slavery, the Army discovered Pvt. Fitz Lee was a black man and fought in the Spanish-American war.
Privately, who suffered from kidney disease, died in 1899 within months of being awarded the Medal of Honor.
The Army announced plans for Fort Lee with a list of seven installations intended to be rebranded soon. The move will cancel changes adopted during the Biden administration, in a committee recommendation created by Congress, and find a valuable alternative to the base name that has ties to the Confederate forces.
The base was named after General Lee from 1917 to 2023, but was named for the fort of Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Greg, the first black man to reach the rank of three-star generals in the last two years, and Lieutenant Colonel Adams Ealy, the best black woman, the best black woman, as an army officer.
The name change effort is the latest from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegses, dismantling diversity inclusion measures from its predecessors. In March, the administration stopped calling large military bases in North Carolina “Fort Liberty” and returned to its former name, Fort Bragg. “We are not interested in your awakened trash or your political correctness,” Hegses told the cheers of an audience of soldiers in battle dress uniforms and red berets in a speech Tuesday.
Like Robert E., Private Fitz was born in Virginia. He was one of four Buffalo soldiers who were awarded the brave medal in the middle of the Cuban war with Spain on June 30, 1898.
They landed from the steamer USS Florida to rescue injured Cuban and American soldiers from a beach near Zaza after losing a skirmish with the Spanish army. “This was frustrating after several previous attempts at rescue were frustrating,” their Medal of Honor quote recounted their courage after American historians called the Battle of Teyabakoa.
