After U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the Army to begin the process of changing the names of seven installations that were renamed two years ago, federal officials immediately got to work.
Officials at Fort Walker, the Army base located in Caroline County, announced Monday that in the coming days and weeks, signage and social media accounts will be changed to revert back to the name A.P. Hill, which it held from its origin in 1941 through 2023.
While the previous name honored Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, who was killed in the Civl War, the new A.P. Hill will represent three different Medal of Honor recipients.
The full name of the base will be Fort Anderson Pinn Hill in honor of Lt. Col. Edward Hill, 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn and Pvt. Bruce Anderson “for extraordinary heroism during the Civil War,” base officials said in a statement.
The release notes that Hill, Pinn and Anderson were “Union heroes” who “executed significant actions separately at Cold Harbor, Chapin’s Farm and Fort Fisher, North Carolina in support of the U.S. Army.”
Their names will replace Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who was a Civil War surgeon and the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.
Anderson was born a free Black in 1845 and enlisted in Company K of the 142nd New York Infantry on Aug. 31, 1864. He did not serve in the U.S. Colored Troops, but in a predominantly white regiment. He joined the attack on Fort Fisher on Jan. 13, 1865.
“He was among a small force of volunteers sent ahead of the main assault to chop down the wooden stakes in front of the Confederate earthworks,” the statement from Fort Walker noted. “Under intense enemy fire, he and 12 others were able to open a gap that their comrades could charge through.”
Anderson was awarded the Medal of Honor 50 years later. He died in 1922 and is buried in Amsterdam, New York.
Pinn was born on March 1, 1843 in Stark County, Ohio. He served with Company I, 5th U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War. Pinn led his unit after all of the officers had been killed or wounded during the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm on Sept. 29, 1864. His actions that day earned him the Medal of Honor. A National Guard facility in Stow, Ohio was named after him.
Hill was born on April 13, 1835 in Liberty, New York, and his family later moved to Michigan. He joined the 16th Michigan Infantry Volunteers on March 24, 1862 for a three-year term as a second lieutenant. He was honorably discharged as a captain in 1864 because of a physical disability.
However, on Jan. 17, 1865, he reentered the service as a major and was soon promoted to lieutenant colonel. He was severely wounded at Cold Harbor, and awarded the Medal of Honor 30 years later for “distinguished gallantry” after he “led the brigade skirmish line in a desperate charge on the enemy’s masked batteries to the muzzles of the guns, where he was severely wounded.” Hill died on Oct. 23, 1900 in Green Bay, Wisconsin and is buried at Fredericksburg National Cemetery.
