US Navy Renames Two Ships Whose Names Have Ties to the Confederacy
The US Navy is renaming two of its vessels as part of ongoing efforts to cut ties with Confederate history.
The former USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship, has been re-named the USNS Marie Thorp, in honor of Marie Tharp, an oceanographer who first mapped the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The Navy also renamed the warship formerly known as USS Chancellorsville to the USS Robert Smalls, honoring an enslaved sailor for the Confederates during the Civil War who later went on to serve South Carolina as a US congressman.
The USNS Marie Thorp was previously named after former Navy Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, who refused to fight against his home state of Virginia and resigned during the Civil War to join the Confederate Army.
Thorp, a pioneering geologist and the founder of modern oceanography who was nicknamed the “Pathfinder of the Seas.” Thorp created the first scientific maps of the Atlantic Ocean floor and shaped our understanding of plate tectonics and continental drift.
While working alongside a colleague, Tharp found mid-ocean ridges running more than 40,000 miles around the world, and in 1977, the pair produced the first complete map of the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, the USS Robert Smalls (formerly the USS Chancellorsville), a U.S. guided-missile cruiser which was homeported in San Diego for many years, was originally named after The Battle of Chancellorsville on April 30-May 6, 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory during the Civil War. Its renaming honors Robert Smalls, a Civil War-era maritime pilot who commandeered a Confederate ship in 1862 and turned it over to the Union forces. It was also the last battle for Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, who was mortally wounded by friendly fire.”
Smalls was born a slave and went on to become a mariner, a businessman, a publisher and a congressman who represented South Carolina, the state where he was born.
“The renaming of these assets is not about rewriting history, but to remove the focus on the parts of our history that don’t align with the tenets of this country,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said.
The new titles were given by a naming commission created by Congress in response to outcry nationwide over existing Confederate memorials following the 2020 slaying of George Floyd.
The military is in the process of gearing up to remove all mentions of the Confederacy, with nine military bases receiving permission for the changes, including Virginia’s Fort Lee, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Pickett, each named after Confederate generals.
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Photo caption: The U.S.S. Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser is set to be renamed the USS Robert Smalls, after a formerly enslaved mariner who steered a Confederate ship to freedom. (Paolo Bayas/U.S. Navy)