If we wouldn't have a memorial to Benedict Arnold, why would we want to memorialize Braxton Bragg?
The first thing I want to make clear is that I believe those who support the current name of our town, do so most likely because they are attached to the name they’ve always known, and because, frankly, most people don’t like change. Nonetheless, the history of place names and public commemorations that predate us is a history we have often been woefully uninformed about. We are trying to inform ourselves and others, of this history, and where it comes from, so in gaining knowledge of this history, we can then make decisions that reflect our support of American values and the true heroes of the past, rather than to unmindfully honor traitors to the United States of America.
This town was given its name by a soldier to honor his former commanding officer, then Captain Braxton Bragg, for his service in the Mexican-American War, when he was asked to establish a fort on the recently created Mendocino Indian Reservation. A fort established for ignominious reasons, not defense of our country. Still, at one time, Braxton Bragg was a respected officer in the United States Army.
There is another American who fought with distinction for the American Colonial Army in the Revolutionary War and ultimately rose to the rank of major general. He was such a trusted soldier that General Washington appointed him Commandant of West Point. This general, however, betrayed his country when he later defected and led the British army in battle against the American soldiers whom he had once commanded, just as Braxton Bragg did. I am unaware of any memorials in the United States with the name of Benedict Arnold attached to them.
It’s a known trope that history is written by the winners. A notable exception is the losers of the American Civil War who got to write a dominant, and false, version of history (at least for much of the country) after the end of Reconstruction. Some of that revisionist history seeped into Northern textbooks over time. Depending upon where one lives, and not necessarily only in the South, students are still being taught much of the South’s view of the Civil War, such as their claims that they were fighting for “state’s rights” and not the preservation of slavery.
Of course, slavery, and the fight to preserve slavery, is a profoundly shameful part of our past. So much so that even to this day—because acknowledging the truth of our past is so difficult, many white Southerners are presented a version of the Civil War that almost totally ignores the experiences of the enslaved, and glorifies the actions of Confederate leaders. This history is passed on through the generations, and it isn’t limited to Southern geography. Thus, monuments, commemorations and place names for Confederate traitors still exist today in many places around our country.
The history about many things that we learned growing up is often incomplete, or it is highly selective or skewed. In short, much of what we may have learned is not necessarily true or is decidedly incomplete, especially if passed in an imperfect process which often was dominated by self-interested political, economic and cultural forces.
It is not necessarily our fault that we are uninformed or misinformed about historical events, but when we encounter new information, or that which is different from what we’ve been taught, we have a chance to reconsider what we thought we knew in this new light. We can even help enlighten others who may, if they learn a new truth, wish to consider taking action in light of this new information as relates to their values and principles.
These false histories and monuments have been and are being challenged, changed or removed across the United States, including the Deep South, especially in the last couple of decades. In 1917, then mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, made an address regarding why the statues and monuments to Confederates were being taken down in his city.
He said, [quote] “[They] are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy — ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for. [The memorials and commemorations] “are not just honoring soldiers. They are honoring people who rose up against the US in a pro-slavery rebellion. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.”[unquote]
Incidentally, a Mississippi lawmaker responded to his speech by saying that he and all others who supported removing the monuments [quote]“should be LYNCHED.”[unquote] The symbols of the Confederacy are still sacred to some.
Speaking of history, many people may be surprised to learn 100,000 citizens of Confederate states volunteered to fight in the Union Army. Not all Southerners supported the Confederacy. The fact is, most army officers in the 19th Century saw Confederates as traitors to the United States of America—and rightly so. The Confederate army fought and killed U.S. Army soldiers to create a state republic to protect their “right” to brutally continue to enslave millions of Americans. The Lost Cause ideology they promulgated was neither noble nor just, as they claimed, and some continue to claim. Can you imagine a modern German citizen proudly proclaim the nobility and justness of the Nazi Regime today?
In addition to the more than 100,000 Southerners who fought for the Union Army, there were Southerners, who, after the war, accepted their loss and abandoned the Confederate cause and began the courageous work to integrate their broken society.
Confederate General James Longstreet, who made significant contributions to most major Confederate battlefield victories, was considered #3 in importance in the Confederacy, just behind Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee. After the war, he moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed ideological course. He supported Black voting and joined the integrated post-war government in Louisiana. As leader of the interracial state militia, he literally battled against former Confederates when they took up arms against that new government. In doing so, he was labelled a race traitor and blamed, retroactively, for the South’s defeat, yet he continued to do what he knew was right.
Despite his high rank and his many successes leading the Confederate Army, General Longstreet has never been commemorated with statues or other memorials in the South because of his postwar rejection of the Lost Cause mythology and his advocacy for racial reconciliation. Perhaps Ft. Bragg could be renamed Longstreet; we do have a “long street” that passes right through town, don’t we? But seriously, the point is that the purpose of all the false history and the monuments, statues, and naming of places after Confederates is to honor and perpetuate the false Lost Cause ideology, those who supported it, and, therefore, implicitly the chattel slave society upon which it was based.
Renaming places and removing these memorials dedicated to Confederates is an active, positive way to reject both this false history and the traitors to the United States of America. It’s a patriotic and noble thing to work to correct past injustices and practices, including changing names and symbols that represent the worst things in this country’s history.