This Navy place of honor now bears Farragut's name after the Confederate one was stripped

Civil War hero and celebrated Knoxville native Admiral David Farragut has been bestowed with a new honor more than 150 years after his death as the U.S. military purges the names of Confederate leaders from its buildings and ships.

Though a Southerner by birth, Farragut heeded his oath and the call to duty when he stayed loyal to the Union during the Civil War, playing a key role in squeezing the Confederacy by leading naval forces that captured New Orleans and Mobile Bay.

He also weathered cries of "traitor!" from the secessionists, and the posthumous indignity of the U.S. military naming scores of places and assets such as ships after the leaders who betrayed it.

Now, the U.S. Navy has honored the Knoxville native, stripping the name of Confederate Franklin Buchanan from the Superintendent's Quarters at the U.S. Naval Academy and renaming it Farragut House after one of America's authentic heroes.

"Admiral Farragut was a true American hero," Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in a release. "He had a choice during the Civil War and he chose loyalty to the Union, which required moral courage."

Farragut was born in 1801 in Knoxville to a Spanish immigrant father. He was appointed as rear admiral in 1862; vice admiral (a rank created for him by President Abraham Lincoln) in 1864; and commissioned admiral in 1866, the first officer of the U.S. Navy to hold that rank, according to the Navy.

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He's best known for his phrase "Damn the torpedoes!" after taking Confederate fire at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. He remained on active duty for the rest of his life and died in 1870 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.

Knoxville has embraced his legacy by incorporating the area of his birth as the town of Farragut in 1980. The Farragut Memorial Plaza features his life-sized statue and the Hyatt Place Hotel in downtown Knoxville, formerly called the Farragut Hotel, honors him with art and an exterior plaque bearing his name.

"I’m proud to have the superintendent’s residence named after our Navy’s first admiral and a Civil War hero, David Glasgow Farragut," said U.S. Naval Academy Superintendent Sean S. Buck. "As the senior ranking naval officer during our nation’s most trying times, his dedication to our nation and its principles serves as a great example for our midshipmen. I couldn’t be happier to have his legacy memorialized so prominently on our historic Yard."

Sites outside of Tennessee honor Farragut, too, including a statue in New York City's Madison Square Park; a statue in Farragut Square park in Washington, D.C.; and Admiral Farragut Academy boarding school in St. Petersburg, Florida. Now the historic building at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, joins the list.

In recent years, communities and organizations across the South have removed Confederate names from places of honor and taken down monuments of Confederate figures.

The military started using Confederate names on facilities during the early 20th century, when the Lost Cause narrative was particularly strong, and because leaders thought it would build community support, especially when Army bases were built in the South.

"All this changed in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020," the Department of Defense said in a news release about its efforts to remove Confederate names from facilities. "Many people protested systemic racism and pointed to Confederate statues and bases as part of that system."

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Naval Academy home renamed in honor of Admiral David Farragut