Why was the US Army base Fort Worden named after a Navy Rear Admiral?

November 23, 2014 11:24 PM

Fort Worden is apparently the only US Army base to ever be named after a Navy officer, one John Lorimer Worden, commander of the Monitor in the US Civil War. The reasons why are possibly lost to history. Any military history buffs out there who might possibly know why?

One supposedly plausible answer is that a president of the day belonged to a secret society (presumably in Washington DC) where they were having a meeting or panel and Worden's name was tossed into the hat as they were discussing historically relevant names to use in naming things. I'm not sure of the name of this society, but the time frame would have been late 1800s, pre-dating Fort Worden itself by an appropriate amount of time.

Warning: This question may actually be unanswerable. It has puzzled professional historians.

posted by loquacious to Society & Culture (12 answers total)

I am certainly not a professional historian, but I will point out that for many years the services were all lumped together in the War Department. It was only after WWII that each service got its own department. The change may have occurred because of the increasing importance of air warfare which led to the formation of a separate department for that service.
posted by Cranberry at 12:22 AM on November 24, 2014

I'm not a professional historian, but this site had a lot of information. Ft. Worden was part of a 'triangle of death' which included Ft. Flagler.

The Army has a weird naming scheme for its forts, up to and including Confederate heroes. The Navy has a sane, place-name system. You will go mad, looking for reason in the Army.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:48 AM on November 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

Scrolling back through the General Order that named Fort Worden, I see a couple of coastal batteries named for Navy men (Battery Decatur and Battery Brumby).
posted by Knappster at 1:29 AM on November 24, 2014

I am certainly not a professional historian, but I will point out that for many years the services were all lumped together in the War Department. It was only after WWII that each service got its own department. The change may have occurred because of the increasing importance of air warfare which led to the formation of a separate department for that service.

This isn't quite true; the Department of the Navy was established in 1798.
posted by Comrade_robot at 4:23 AM on November 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

It makes a certain kind of symbolic sense, given that the Monitor was basically limited to "brown water" tasks. I would guess that someone thought it fitting/charmingly ironic to name a coastal defense fort after a blockade enforcer.
posted by AndrewInDC at 7:21 AM on November 24, 2014

There is some background info here. (army.mil).

"The earliest official policy on the naming of posts and forts is found in War Department General Order Number 11, dated 8 February 1832. The order stated, “All new posts which may be hereafter established, will receive their names from the War Department, and be announced in General Orders from the Headquarters of the Army.”"
...
"The 1893 “Report of the Quartermaster-General” by Brigadier General Richard Napoleon Batchelder, Quartermaster General of the Army, suggested that the Secretary of War take responsibility for both the naming of posts and for the designation of posts as forts or camps. He deplored the use of terms such as barracks and felt that military installations should be named only after military heroes, not geographical features, Indian tribes, cities, or non-military individuals."

The USS Monitor was used to support the Army during the Peninsula Campaign [link] in the U.S. Civil War.

Perhaps the name selected by the War Department was to honor a military hero. A naval hero was used because of the naval focus of the Army post in protecting the entry of Puget Sound from an enemy naval advance.
posted by Leenie at 8:46 AM on November 24, 2014

Interesting topic. Always wondered how traitors like AP Hill and the like got their names on forts. Wonder if there's a Ft. Arnold or Ft. Ames somewhere?

"During the inter-war years, it was common for the Secretary of War to solicit recommendations for names for new posts from installation commanders; corps and branch commanders; as well as the Chief, Historical Section, Army War College. Unsolicited suggestions for names were also submitted from sources outside the military establishment, and political pressure and public opinion often influenced the naming decision. As a result, it was common for camps and forts to be named after local features or veterans with a regional connection. In the southern states they were frequently named after celebrated Confederate soldiers."
posted by the christopher hundreds at 10:28 AM on November 24, 2014

Response by poster: Sorry, I had to unmark the two best answers I marked because they're not satisfying a resident historian at Fort Worden, though I personally like "You will go mad, looking for reason in the Army." which he laughed at, but denied.

It makes a certain kind of symbolic sense, given that the Monitor was basically limited to "brown water" tasks. I would guess that someone thought it fitting/charmingly ironic to name a coastal defense fort after a blockade enforcer.

This doesn't hold true for Admiral Worden, though, as he was stationed primarily in open water in the North Atlantic, not littoral service like Puget Sound.

Another piece of the puzzle is why was this remote fort named after someone who'd never been here, nor had any involvement in the Pacific area at all.

Another bit of the puzzle is that the US Army did apparently have a naming scheme in place at the time, and naming it after Admiral Worden apparently breaks that existing scheme.
posted by loquacious at 11:35 AM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

This doesn't hold true for Admiral Worden, though, as he was stationed primarily in open water in the North Atlantic, not littoral service like Puget Sound.

I'm not following. Worden's most well-known action as commander of the Monitor was in the Battle of Hampton Rhodes, at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Though the ship was designed with the goal of being seaworthy on the open ocean, it's actual service experience generally showed that to be a bad idea, because it sat so low in the water.

Later, as admiral, Worden did command a squadron that spent most of its time in the Mediterranean and Europe.

According to Wikipedia, anyway, Worden spent the Mexican-American War patrolling the West Coast, so that might partly account for his name showing up there. But I don't think his geographical service record likely has much to do with it. It was a name someone knew as a person who had long served with distinction in the Navy, rising to rear admiral, who played a key role in a major Civil War engagement.
posted by AndrewInDC at 1:10 PM on November 24, 2014

This Navy page says he commanded the USS Pensacola in the Pacific. Maybe he went to Puget Sound at some point.

Also I noticed from the General Order linked above that Fort Levett in Maine was named after Christopher Levett, who was a Royal Navy officer. Although he did explore Maine, and it was in the 1600s. But it looks like it wasn't unheard of to name an Army fort after a naval officer.
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:26 PM on November 24, 2014

Also Fort Foote on the Potomac was named after a Navy officer, Rear Admiral A. H. Foote.
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:39 PM on November 24, 2014

It kind of looks like Fort Worden was supposed to have been Fort Wilson; Fort Worden was completed in 1898, and Admiral Worden died in October of 1897. It's pure conjecture, but possibly somebody who was thanked by Congress twice and was a fairly famous Civil War hero had something named after him close to his death.
posted by Comrade_robot at 2:57 PM on November 24, 2014