My first cousin some generations removed, Samuel Pryor Timmons, was mortally wounded at the battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. Timmons was a member of Company A, 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Captured by the Confederates, he was shipped first to the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond, and then to Andersonville Prison in Georgia, where he died Sept. 16, 1864. The Confederates at Chickamauga were under the command of Gen. Braxton Bragg.
It is an affront to Private Timmons and the other 35,474 Ohioans who died defending the Union that the names of Army bases are now reverting to those of traitorous Confederate generals, despite the pretense that, at Bragg, for example, a valorous World War II soldier also last-named Bragg is the supposed namesake.
Braxton Bragg was one of the worst generals to ever lead an army into battle. Why would we honor him by putting his name back on Fort Liberty? The nonsense that the fort is now being named for some other Bragg who wandered across the base 80 years ago is just ludicrous…