Virginia’s Fort A.P. Hill renamed Fort Walker in push to remove Confederate symbols

Virginia’s Fort A.P. Hill was officially redesignated Fort Walker on Friday morning during a ceremony on base, which took place on the eve of Women’s Equality Day.

According to the media advisory from the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and U.S. Army Military District of Washington, Fort Walker was renamed in honor of Dr. Mary E. Walker, who treated wounded Union soldiers at field hospitals throughout the Civil War.

Fort A.P. Hill, which is located near the town of Bowling Green, Virginia, was originally named after Confederate Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill.

The redesignation is a part of the Department of Defense’s recommendations to rename U.S. Army installations to remove the names of Confederate soldiers.

The national initiative includes the renaming of nine U.S. Army bases. Among them, Fort Lee, also in Virginia, was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in honor of Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams.

Gregg, the only living U.S. soldier in modern history to have an installation named in his honor, attended the Fort Walker redesignation ceremony on Friday, says the U.S. Army.

The first Black female lieutenant general, Lt. Gen. Nadja West, spoke at Friday’s ceremony and reflected on the significance of Army installation names.

“Recalling them serves to remind us to challenge us, to inspire us and even unite us.” West said during her speech, “It reminds us of who we are, and why we do what we do,”

West, the former U.S. Army surgeon general and the first Black woman to serve in that role, said Walker revealed possibilities and provided hope in her journey to become an Army doctor.

“I know that if there was no Dr. Walker there would have been no Dr. West, plain and simple. She blazed a trail that I and thousands of others have been following over a century later,” West said.

Although Walker was a civilian and never a commissioned officer in the military, she received a Medal of Honor from President Andrew Johnson for her service, in November 1865, according to a U.S. Army news release. She is the only woman in U.S. history to receive this honor, per the U.S. Department of Defense.

Maj. Gen. Trevor Bredenkamp, who also spoke during the ceremony, said that Fort Walker is the only army installation to be named solely after a woman.

Walker worked as an unpaid volunteer in Virginia during the Civil War after she originally applied to be an Army surgeon, but was rejected because she was a woman. Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas appointed Walker as an assistant surgeon in the Army, in September 1863.

Bredenkamp said during Friday’s ceremony Walker “was devoted to duty and committed to caring for soldiers.”

The new installation names were recommended by a naming commission set up by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the process was completed in Jan., the DOD said in a press release.

The issue of the army base names gained attention after protests following the police killing of George Floyd identified the Confederate statues and bases as an extension of systemic racism, according to the DOD, which mandated that all nine installations be renamed by the end of 2023.