A Brief History
On December 16, 1863, after bungling the defense of Chattanooga, Confederate Army General Braxton Bragg was replaced as Commander of the Army of Tennessee by General Johnston. Nevertheless, a major US Army base was named after Bragg.
Digging Deeper
Many other American places have been named after people infamous for their failures, including:
Fort Polk, Louisiana, named after Confederate General Leonidas Polk, a political appointee with no significant military experience and poor performance during the Civil War. Fort Polk is now Fort Johnson.
Custer, South Dakota and Custer City, Oklahoma, named after US Army Lt. Col. George A. Custer who with his entire command was wiped out at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.
Hoover Dam, Nevada and Arizona, named after President Herbert Hoover, who not only lost his bid for reelection in 1932, but also presided over the onset of the Great Depression.
Question for students (and subscribers): What place would you add to this list? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Axelrod, Alan. Generals South, Generals North: The Commanders of the Civil War Reconsidered. Lyons Press, 2011.
West, Doug. Herbert Hoover: A Short Biography: Thirty-First President of the United States. C & D Publications, 2020.
The featured image in this article, a map by Hlj of the Battles for Chattanooga, November 24–25, 1863, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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