Fort A. P. Hill was renamed in 2023 to honor Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor
Source: US Army, Meet Dr. Mary Walker: The only female Medal of Honor recipient
Fort A. P. Hill was renamed in 2023 to honor Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor
Source: US Army, Meet Dr. Mary Walker: The only female Medal of Honor recipient
Land bisected by Route 301 in Caroline County was chosen. Acquisition of 110,000 acres was contemplated, but the presence of historic homes and funding constraints limited the ultimate purchase to 77,000 acres. War Department General Order No. 5 established Fort A.P. Hill on June 11, 1941, almost five months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Fort A. P. Hill was established in 1941, and ended up with 77,000 acres in Caroline County before being renamed for Mary Edwards Walker in 2023
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online
In early 1942, 26,000 troops destined for Operation TORCH in North Africa trained at the site. They included Major General Patton's Task Force A, which invaded French Morocco. Other units which trained there included the 29th Division, which earned great honor on D-Day in 1944.1
Fort A.P. Hill was named after a Confederate General who served under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia. General Ambrose Powell Hill, famed for wearing a red shirt in battle, was killed at the end of the siege of Petersburg in 1865. In 1941 Army officials considered naming the new facility after Major General James McAndrew (a top military leader in World War I) and Captain John Hunt Morgan, a Revolutionary War leader. A.P. Hill had been born in Culpeper County, and he was the only native-born Virginian among the three choices.2
two alternative names were considered before the US Army named Fort A. P. Hill in 1941
Source: U.S. Army Center of Military History, Naming of U.S. Army Posts
The military base was renamed on August 25, 2023. The Department of Defense Naming Commission, tasked with renaming military facilities that commemmorated Confederates, chose to honor Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. She is the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor, based on her service as an Army surgeon during the Civil War. The military revoked her Medal of Honor in 1917, along with many other awards it considered to have been granted too generously and thus diminishing the value. President Jimmie Carter restored her award in 1977.
Fort Walker became the first US military base named solely after a woman. In Virginia, Fort Lee was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams to honor in part the first black woman commissioned into the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, Lt. Col. Charity Adams.3