Just weeks before World War I ended, the U.S. military established Fort Benning near Columbus. The first soldiers arrived there on Oct. 6, 1918. Later that month, officials held a ceremony for naming it after Confederate Brig. Gen. Henry Benning.
More than a century later, the base was renamed Fort Moore in honor of the late Hal and Julie Moore, a husband-and-wife duo known for their fierce advocacy for military families.
The base was among nine military installations that were renamed during the Biden administration so that they would no longer honor Confederate figures. The changes happened amid renewed protests for racial justice following the violent police killings of Black people.
On Wednesday, the military will hold a ceremony for restoring the base’s name. But this time, according to the Trump administration, it will honor Fred Benning, a modest World War I hero from Nebraska. His granddaughter is expected to attend the ceremony.
The Pentagon said the name change “honors the warfighter ethos and recognizes the heroes who have trained at the installation for decades and will continue to train on its storied ranges.” Critics have called the move a calculated attempt at stoking division.
In February, the Pentagon restored Fort Liberty in North Carolina back to its original name, Fort Bragg. The post was originally named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, who owned a plantation and slaves. The Pentagon says it is now named after the late Army Pfc. Roland Bragg, who received the Silver Star for gallantry and a Purple Heart for wounds sustained during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
Here is some history about the four people whose names are now linked to the sprawling base in west Georgia.
Henry Lewis Benning
Born in Columbia County, Henry Lewis Benning worked as a lawyer in Columbus, where he eventually served as solicitor general, according to New Georgia Encyclopedia. He also served six years as a Georgia Supreme Court associate justice.
Benning helped draft Georgia’s ordinance leading to secession from the Union in January of 1861. The following month, he traveled to Richmond and invited Virginia to join the Confederacy. Georgia, he told the Virginia State Convention, seceded because “a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery.”
He also warned that if slavery were abolished, “we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything.” Moments later, he added: “we will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth; and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination.”
Benning served as a colonel in the Confederate military and was later promoted to brigadier general.
Nicknamed “Old Rock” for his steadfastness in combat, according to the encyclopedia, Benning had two horses shot from under him at the Battle of Chickamauga and was wounded at the bloody Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. After recovering, Benning resumed command of Confederate troops in Virginia and was with them when they surrendered at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
After the war, according to the encyclopedia, Benning, “like so many other southern planters, returned home to a devastating economic situation. Much of his wealth had been invested in enslaved people and land, but the bondsmen were now gone, and much of his land was ruined.”
He died in 1875 and is buried in Linwood Cemetery in Columbus.
Hal and Julie Moore
Lt. Gen. Harold “Hal” Gregory Moore was born in rural Kentucky. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point near the end of World War II and rose through the Army ranks.
In the Korean War, Moore commanded rifle and heavy mortar companies. In the Vietnam War, he led U.S. soldiers against the North Vietnamese army in the historic Battle of la Drang Valley in 1965. For days, Moore’s unit held off waves of enemy assaults, according to the National Museum of the United States Army.
Based on his courageous actions in that battle, Moore received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest medal for valor. The citation for his medal says he “repeatedly exposed himself to intense hostile fire.”
“By his constant movement and repeated exposure to this insurgent fire,” the citation says, “Moore set the standard for his combat troops by a courageous display of ‘leadership by example,’ which characterized all his actions throughout the long and deadly battle.”
Moore cowrote a book about his experiences, “We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam.” His book was adapted into a 2002 film in which he was portrayed by actor Mel Gibson.
Moore’s wife, Julie, was born at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. The daughter of a WWII veteran, she volunteered for the Red Cross in Army hospitals and helped set up Army Community Service organizations, which offer education and counseling. She attended funerals for soldiers who were killed in combat and helped reform how military families are notified of their loved ones’ deaths.
“Pressed by this example, the Army instituted the practice of delivering compassionate notices through uniformed personnel,” her obituary says, “and built support networks for the families of slain soldiers. These practices have become standard throughout the military.”
She and her husband are buried at Fort Benning.
Fred Benning
Fred Benning was born in Norfolk, Nebraska, in 1900. At 17, he enlisted with the U.S. Army and served in the First Infantry Division during WWI.
Benning received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France in 1918. After the enemy killed his platoon commander and disabled two senior noncommissioned officers, according to the Pentagon, Benning led 20 others in his company “through heavy fire to their assigned objective.”
In 1920, his Distinguished Service Cross was mailed to him after he declined to receive it with military honors, The Albion Argus in Nebraska reported that year.
“Officers attached to the recruiting office,” the article says, “commented on his request that the cross be mailed to him, stating that such modesty is typical of the spirit of soldiers who have merited such awards.”
After the war, Benning married, raised a family and operated a bakery in Neligh, Nebraska, where he served as mayor, according to an obituary published in The Norfolk Daily News.
Serious and stoic, Benning never talked about his experiences in WWI, said his granddaughter, Sue Williams, a school principal in Neligh, Nebraska.
“That was something I was told early on — do not ask,” Williams said. “It was never discussed.”
Benning died in 1974 at age 74. He is buried in his hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska.
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