"Navy Renaming USS Chancellorsville" Topic

The Navy's top civilian leader announced that he will rename the guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville after a commission called for a new name last spring.

The cruiser is named after the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, which, despite heavy casualties, is considered Gen. Robert E. Lee's greatest victory in the war. The battle also led to the wounding of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who was shot by his own men after being mistaken for Union cavalry. He died a week after the battle.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced that he would name the ship after Robert Smalls, a former slave who was conscripted into Confederate service in 1862, stole a Confederate steamer ship and escaped from Charleston, then turned the ship over to the Union Navy. Smalls would go on to be appointed a brigadier general of the South Carolina militia and serve in the South Carolina legislature, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives for five terms…

Military: link

Better take "Chancellorsville" off all those Union battle flags in museums all over the country, too. This administration must never have read Orwell, or worse, don't care.

As I said before…

"Doin' Right Ain't Got No End"
Captain "Red Legs" Terrill

We are on a slippery slope of renaming and removal and it has already passed the Confederacy and is moving down that slope of others. But I've said this all before. Chancellorsville 😂, should we break Gettysburg down by day and only name things after Day2 and 3? 🤣.

Smalls deserved a new ship, his story is a worthy one.

Agree 35th. There is no point in making a big drama and renaming everything, IMO. A ship leaving service in a couple of years anyway is not worth fighting over. Let's move ahead and honor those who were left out during the Lost Cause century.

We have renamed and removed enough to make a point,we can be more inclusive moving forward. I have been to Gettysburg many times and am always struck by what I consider the irony of the words on the South Carolina monument. But I would not want it changed. It tells part of the bigger story of those times and I do not judge the history.

It's a Navy Ship named over a land battle.

That's OK I guess how about USS Charleston?

Smalls does deserve a ship. I'm fine with ditching names such as Bragg but renaming a vessel violates an ancient tradition far predating the US Navy that renaming a ship is bad luck.

My complaint is that , once again, the "woke" Navy violates whatever shreds of naming traditions that remain. Rename her for a Yankee victory, that is fine. As noted above Smalls is enough of a hero for a nice new frigate or DD. THAT would be traditional.

I've always loathed the fact that they named the ship after a secesh victory, but I also abide by the tradition that it's bad luck to rename a ship. With only a few years left in service, it would have been better to leave it be and put the emphasis on the sacrifice made by Union troops at the battle.

There is some precedence for honoring our fallen in battles that we lost; USS Bataan and USS Wake Island spring immediately to mind. Nobody thinks for a minute that those examples glorify the Japanese Empire. A simple reframing of "Chancellorsville" would have served the useful purpose of giving the reactionaries less to squawk about while driving home the fact that, like the Japanese Empire, the CSA was an enemy of our nation.

Will they go after vessels named after states that seceded next, or cities in those states? Obviously said tongue in cheek, but one never knows.

There is plenty of naming tradition left. The new Enterprise is due in a couple of years. A classic and will be the pride of the fleet. The era of naming after Presidents is over and we are back to time honored names in many cases. Smalls is a hero, perfect for a frigate.

Never rename….get it right the first time and leave it.

I am delighted at that news. Small deserves a US Navy ship named in his honor.

Considering 90% of the population has no idea what Chancellorsville was, this will not offend too many people. Still, this was a battle where the men on both sides fought bravely (well, most of them) and it really doesn't seem proper to change the name. As far as renaming ships, well, the Navy has done it a number of times. In the early 1900s two classes of armored cruisers were named after states. Then when they started building more battleships, all those cruisers were renamed after cities in those states, so the state names could be reused. Granted, one of those renamed cruisers was rather unlucky… :)

I just don't get you guys who so loathe the CSA. Lincoln, Grant and the GAR all forgave their former enemies and certainly didn't make any attempts to stop Southerners from erecting monuments and such to their lost cause (small caps so no one is triggered). Yet so many on here foam at the mouth with pure hatred toward anyone who fought for the South. What's the deal. South lost, forces of good won. Jesus, what a bunch of whiners. How in the ing world did previous generations live with their obvious un-Wokeness? And before you all go off on me, GGGrandpa lost his left arm after laying in a strawberry patch all night after being wounded at Cold Harbor, while fighting with, not agin, US Grant. My grandparents, who personally knew G-G-Grampa Karl like the whole rest of the country, didn't beschmirch the Confederacy during the 1960's Civil War Centennial celebrations.

And many of the CSA whiners today wonder why the word Snowflake is often used in connection with them.

The new Enterprise is due in a couple of years.

She is due to be commissioned in 2028.

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There will always have to be an Enterprise. The tradition began with the 'Lucky Little Enterprise during the War with Tripoli and the War of 1812.

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I just don't get you guys who so loathe the CSA. Lincoln, Grant and the GAR all forgave their former enemies and certainly didn't make any attempts to stop Southerners from erecting monuments and such to their lost cause (small caps so no one is triggered). Yet so many on here foam at the mouth with pure hatred toward anyone who fought for the South. What's the deal. South lost, forces of good won.

Because it's easy and cheap moralizing by people who do not comprehend the nation shattering violence and destruction of the Civil War. We're now some 160 years removed from a war that brutally impacted every American -- some 1-in-4 adult men of fighting age (18-44) were killed or injured in that war. That would equate to about 20 million people in today's terms.

After such bitter violence it was truly visionary for Lincoln to actively try and move towards reconciliation and try and knit the nation back together. So all of these monuments, base names and so on are largely symbolic of this desire for reconciliation rather than the desire to glorify the Confederacy.

Yes, but I think mjkerner was ranting about people here. TMpers know this. But the argument could be made that that time has passed. We're past the period of reconciliation, so now the statues represent totally different things to different people and therefore, blah, blah, blah…

Incidentally, people here tend to discuss/argue in a (usually) decent fashion. The only person "foaming at the mouth…"

And please tell me we're not descending into the 'statues' discussion again! lol

Good point SB.

I did think Enterprise was due in 2026, Brechtel, thanks for this. Looking forward to it!

Granted, one of those renamed cruisers was rather unlucky… :)

Two actually! The former California (renamed San Diego) was the largest USN ship lost in WW1 when mined off Long Island and the former Tennessee renamed Memphis was lost to a tidal wave (of all things) off Puerto Rico. Getting two armored cruisers lost in the space of a few years should serve as a reminder not to mess with ancient tradition.

I was lucky to know Mark Hayes (RIP, my friend), who related to me the story of how USS Chancellorsville was named. At the time, he worked in the Navy Historical Office, which had the task of recommending names of Navy vessels. The Ticonderoga class vessels were being developed. According to Mark, someone from the Pentagon called and was frantic to get a name for an additional vessel since Congress had authorized more than the Navy had asked for. The person answering the phone asked aloud what would be a good name.
Some Rebel sympathizer in the office shouted out Chancellorsville. The person on the phone said thanks and hung up before anyone else could respond.

Maybe it's apocryphal, but it's a good story!

We don't need no stinking Woke!
It wont be long before Mel Brooks movies are outlawed.

How typical of Congress to authorize one more ship than the Navy asked for. Its always about bringing home the pork with those people.

Saw that on Military.com … I am interested in the other ships, posts, bases, etc. that will be renamed. I just hope the renaming does not lead to future generations forgetting our past.

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[snort]
What a waste of time and money, since this is expected to happen:

"The US Navy wants to decommission its entire fleet of Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers by 2027 due to its costly repair work,"

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These ships are pretty old and basically need a rebuild. If Congress starts counting ships and missiles and thinks this is how you match the Chinese, I hope there will be some informed discussion before they vote on anything.

Notice that this article quotes VA members of Congress, where the military, especially the Navy is a major part of the economy, including shipbuilding at Newport News. I wonder who would refit these cruisers?

Just a point of clarification. The appellation Snowflake best applies to white cats and those humans who get all kinds of sentimental feely feels in a bunch when racist or treasonous icons are being taken down a notch.

As for why past folks weren't more opposed to propping up the glory of the CSA/lost cause, I wonder if its because bigotry (on which the CSA was explicitly based) has been rather a norm in American history. Good thing norms can change.

So all of these monuments, base names and so on are largely symbolic of this desire for reconciliation…

Excluding the Chancellorsville, which comes much later in history.

I'm in favor of the renaming, and I'm not concerned about superstition.

We don't need no stinking Woke!

Do you know the definition of 'woke'?

Alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism.

If 'we' don't need any 'woke', then by inference we 'need' injustice, discrimination, and racism?

Regarding the Confederacy, yes Lincoln and Grant were trying to rebuild the country after the war and welcomed the former Confederates back into the country.

Unfortunately, some of the former Confederates, such as Jubal Early, began the 'Lost Cause' movement after the war and unfortunately that ahistorical idea is still with us in some form or other.

It would have been much different to my mind is a Confederate sympathizer had not murdered President Lincoln. That was the worst thing that happened to the former Confederacy.

Again it is a slippery slope you are going down. There are already demands for other historical figures to have name's removed or statues removed because of their association with the subjugation of the American Indian tribes. That includes Many ex Union officers, some very prominent. Others removed because they owned slaves. Some removed because of perceived bias to the LBGT.. views.

So where does it stop? When does it stop for you personally?

What may seem unreasonable today, will look more reasonable in the future.

I just included a few links of the most recent of these types of changes I have a list of.

I don't disagree with some of the Confederate name changes, as long as it was guaranteed to be all. But we know that's not the case. The problem is, I know it will not be all and the reason I disagree with any. It is a never ending slippery slope.

The union soldiers, those some of you on here claim to revere, were justly proud of their participation in the battle of Chancellorsville. Their part and the part their comrades who were wounded and died on that field. The ship name honors them as well. That is why that battle was prominent on their battle flags. That's why some Union regiments built monuments on that field:

27th Indiana
154th New York
114th Pennsylvania

I would claim 95% of those on the street you talk with have no idea what the name Chancellorsville is or it's meaning. Part of the 5% who might know it was a civil war battle, would have no idea who won.

The ships name now, is only an honor to those who fought and died there and those in favor of the change seem to want to take that honor away from them for an obscure, meaningless agenda point, that in the great scheme of things will make absolutely no difference in this country.

The people advocating all these, including those in the links below, have the same attitude as the fictional Captain "Red Legs" Terrill

"Doin' Right Ain't Got No End"

This is my opinion and it will never change.

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So all of these monuments, base names and so on are largely symbolic of this desire for reconciliation rather than the desire to glorify the Confederacy.

Nearly all the monuments were erected from the 1890s through the 1920s as part of the Lost Cause symbology and rehabilitation. The UDC was particularly active in this endeavor, being responsible for hundreds of such monuments.

The naming of bases after CSA officers was restricted to WWI and WWII. How much of this was done in the spirit of reconciliation versus the agendas and influences of powerful Southern Senators and Representatives is debatable. There were certainly those that made it clear that no base located in a Southern state would bear the name of a Yankee officer. One of these, Howard W. Smith of Virginia, had previously seen to it that Camp Humphreys was renamed to Fort Belvoir. Humphreys had been the US Army Chief of Engineers and the post was established as the Engineer Training School for the expanding needs of the AEF. One of Smith's first priorities upon being elected was renaming the installation to honor the Belvoir plantation that had previously occupied the grounds.

Alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism.

If 'we' don't need any 'woke', then by inference we 'need' injustice, discrimination, and racism?

The problem I see with this concept is has come down to at times to right these "wrongs" of the past. Which all of us had nothing to do with. My people didn't come here until 1905. No one living today owned any slaves and even if one is a minority, they didn't pick any cotton.

Many decisions are made not on ability or competence but on race, sex, sexual preference, etc. Many minorities see that as insulting as that sound like they are not capable of making the standards. And I totally agree.

E.g. Many of my troops and friends in the Army were minorities. It didn't seem to matter. Just so you were capable and could do/did your job. That was the standard. I.e. whoever was packing my chute or piloting the helicopter my soldiers and I were being transported. I want those Riggers & pilots to be very, very capable, efficient, etc., indeed.

And something else I see in the media, etc. IMO the race card is being played too often. If everything in racist than nothing is racist. And bigotry and racism are a double edge sword. It seems there are some minorities that are as racist and anyone else.

humans who get all kinds of sentimental feely feels in a bunch when racist or treasonous icons are being taken down a notch.

Those types are few, or at least are few that I know of around here. However, again we must not forget the good, the bad & the ugly of our past. For better or worse … accurately …

Nearly all the monuments were erected from the 1890s through the 1920s as part of the Lost Cause symbology and rehabilitation.

The Lost Cause narrative was a corrupted concept, IMO. Some did and will say the ACW was about states' rights. Well yes in some ways. However, those states' rights included slavery. Of course, we know that is a terrible institution. And yes, it is still going on in some countries.

But sometimes we try to put today's concepts, morals, etc. to what happened in the past. That IMO is really not a good idea, generally. As the ideas, standards, etc., of the past can't be changed as we can't time travel. But we have to understand those concepts from the past that no longer are viable today. We can't change history by ignoring it or skewing the truth.

Nearly all the monuments were erected from the 1890s through the 1920s as part of the Lost Cause symbology and rehabilitation.

Monuments tend to go up when the generation that fought starts dying off in big numbers. If the typical CSA veteran was born around 1840 then it is no surprise that the monuments commemorating their service and sacrifice would rise up between 1890 and 1920. What would anyone expect? I would expect that the monuments were erected for a variety of reasons and that Southern nationalism was a contributing factor. It is a bit spurious to make a gross generalization about the motivation for erecting such monuments. It probably needs to evaluated on a case by case basis. But of course, in the woke world of 2023, that kind of careful and subtle evaluation seems sadly lacking.

Or was it in the era of Jim Crow and the growing 'Lost Cause' movement?

No, I don't think a simplistic notion such as "Lost Cause" fully explains the motivations for raising monuments in the South between 1890 to 1920.

Aren't there TWO sides in a battle? One will 'win'. All fought. Remember the battle.

35th, the Red State article on the University of Richmond was interesting. Williams was a founder 150 years ago, and I doubt that his descendants could now be considered to have been defrauded of his money. And his income derived from slavery yet Richmond denied enrollment to blacks until 1964.

There are two sides to this story. all this is history and some names can be teaching opportunities. Just running around changing everything en masse, as we seem to have been doing, without more context is hard to take. This may be a media issue as much as anything, they excel at the half story to cater to their fans. Your question about the slippery slope is a good one. How much will be erased?

Red State here does not seem to have looked into how the school came to this decision, how their community feels about it. Half a story, one side only. Making these kinds of name changes should include open deliberation and community involvement, IMO. We could maybe learn more about what woke means. It was not a derogatory or negative term originally.

But we don't know much about this and many other similar decisions. Was Williams a bad guy? The school would not be there without him. Worthy of discussion in a class there. You could even leave the name and use it to teach some history.

Tort my question is where and when does this stop?

Take the "Christ on the Water" painting at the Merchant Marine Academy.

"The 10-foot by 19-foot painting, entitled "Christ on the Water" and also known as "Jesus and Lifeboat," was painted in 1944 by noted marine artist Lt. Hunter Wood, USMS, to hang in the chapel built at the USMMA Basic School in San Mateo, California. The painting depicts an image of Jesus and merchant seamen adrift in a lifeboat, presumably after being torpedoed in the Indian Ocean during World War II. When the San Mateo campus closed in 1947, the painting came to the Academy, and was installed in its current location, which served as the Academy's interfaith chapel from 1942 to 1961. The American Merchant Marine Museum has custody of the painting and holds it as a heritage asset."

"The academy placed a white curtain over the painting after a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). In his Jan. 10 letter to USMMA Superintendent Vice Adm. Joanna M. Nunan, MRFF president and founder Michael Weinstein argued that the painting's display constituted a violation of the First Amendment's clause forbidding the establishment of After the move prompted a petition and letters to Nunan from figures such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and other members of Congress, the academy announced that the massive painting will be uncovered but ultimately moved to the school's chapel, which multiple sources told is prone to flooding."

Ok since 1947, no issues, but suddenly one to a few have issues and the painting is covered until complaints by people in Congress.

Again a very slippery slope of a vocal few.

I am sure a few will say this is reasonable, and that is my whole point.

Marcus & Heedless +1 … But yet many can only see the USA as a racist bigoted country. Anything else does not fit that narrative/agenda. As I said, history should be taught including all the good, the bad & the ugly. But seems to me initiatives e.g. CRT, 1619 Project, etc. are skewed, intentionally.

35th that was my question has well. How much are we going to erase? I would never have touched the painting. It is a work of art and has nothing to do with establishment of religion. And Williams's name on a building is okay if you teach on class on the history of it, and maybe how all history is important.

I don't think a simplistic notion such as "Lost Cause"…

It isn't a 'simplistic notion' but a conscious effort the distort history (offer an excuse for the behavior) in favor of the Confederacy.

See these two books on the subject which explain it quite well:

-The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won by Edward Bonekemper.

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-The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History by Gary Gallagher and Alan Nolan.

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The idea of the 'Lost Cause' is a joke, but it has influenced authors and historians since it was invented by defeated Confederates.

I don't think anyone who knows history, etc. understands that the "Lost Cause" narrative is false. As flawed as are CRT and 1619. But yet all 3 have their followers.

This nation still has freedom of speech, etc. Whether we like what a group has to say or not. E.g. Neo-Nazis, KKK, White supremacists[I'm still looking for who and where these loons are ?], Woke, CRT, 1619, BLM, DEI, etc. Frankly I don't like any of these "groups" …

It isn't a 'simplistic notion' but a conscious effort the distort history (offer an excuse for the behavior) in favor of the Confederacy.

Sorry Brechtel, I wasn't clear. What I meant to say was that your equation,

"Lost Cause" = monuments,

is simplistic.

👍👍

"Lost Cause" = monuments…

I didn't say that and I was not inferring that it was an 'equation.' Perhaps you might like to read the two books that I suggested.

We're going to lose.

It was a battle. Men on both sides fought bravely and were wounded and killed on its fields. Both sides carried it on their battle flags. The name today honors the memories of those men.

If those men who fought there are proud enough to have stitched that name on their battle flags, consecrated with their blood; who are we today to deny the honor of that name on a ship in their remembrance?

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Subject: Flags Part 1


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The ACW as we know had Americans on both sides. Regardless, history can't be forgotten or remembered in an inaccurate manner. But it seems many indoctrinated in the current narrative do not care. Facts are secondary …

And, of course, you're referring to the Lost Cause myth and narrative…

As I said, I don't think anyone who knows history, etc. understands that the "Lost Cause" narrative is false. As flawed as are CRT and 1619. But yet all 3 have their followers.

So yes, IMO the Lost Cause narrative, along with CRT & 1619 are skewed, false, corrupted, biased, agenda driven, etc.