Fort Lee (military base)


Fort Lee is a United States Army post in Prince George County, Virginia, and headquarters of the United States Army Combined Arms Support Command / Sustainment Center of Excellence, the U.S. Army Quartermaster School, the U.S. Army Ordnance School, the U.S. Army Transportation School, the Army Sustainment University, Defense Contract Management Agency, and the U.S. Defense Commissary Agency.
Fort Lee also hosts two Army museums, a Military Entrance Processing Command station, and the vocational training schools for culinary specialists in the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. The equipment and other materiel associated with the Army's Ordnance Museum was moved to the post in 2009 and 2010 for use by the United States Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center.
For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Fort Lee as a census-designated place with a population of 9,874 as of the 2020 census – nearly triple the size of the 2010 census count.

Naming

The installation was initially named Camp Lee after Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general; the name was changed to Fort Lee in 1950.
Fort Lee was one of the U.S. Army installations named for Confederate soldiers that the U.S. Naming Commission recommended be renamed. On 8 August 2022, the commission proposed that the name be changed to Fort Gregg-Adams, after Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Earley. On 6 October 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin accepted the recommendation and directed the name change occur no later than 1 January 2024. On 5 January 2023, William A. LaPlante, US under-secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, directed the full implementation of the recommendations.
On 27 April 2023, the post was officially renamed to Fort Gregg-Adams. It was the first U.S. military base to be named for African Americans. The naming of Fort Gregg-Adams was notable as it was the first time since 1900 that a fort had been named after a service member who was still alive at the time.
In June of 2025, the name was again changed to Ft. Lee, but this time to honor Buffalo Soldier Private Fitz Lee, a Spanish–American War veteran who, under enemy fire, rescued wounded soldiers in Cuba, earning him the Medal of Honor. Private Lee, a historically obscure service member, was chosen due to sharing a surname with the former Confederate general. The Pentagon was forbidden by law from reverting the name back to that of its former namesake, and chose Private Lee from a list of recipients of military decorations as a workaround.
When US President Donald Trump spoke about the renaming at Fort Bragg on June 10, 2025, he announced that the Army would be "restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee", mentioning the name of the former Confederate general instead of the US Army private.

History

World War I

Just 18 days after a state of war with Germany was declared on April 6, 1917, the first Camp Lee was established as a state mobilization camp; it later became a division training camp.
In June 1917, building began; within sixty days some 14,000 men were on the installation, home to the 155th Depot Brigade. The role of depot brigades was to receive recruits and draftees, then organize them and provide them with uniforms, equipment and initial military training. Depot brigades also received soldiers returning home at the end of the war and carried out their mustering out and discharges. When construction work ended, there were accommodations for 60,335 men. Camp Lee was one of the largest "cities" in Virginia in 1917, with more than 60,000 soldiers trained there prior to their departure for the Western Front.
Camp Lee was the mobilization center for the 80th Division, the Blue Ridge Division, which was organized there in August 1917. Because of significant common heritage in the past, units of the division were primarily residents of Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The 80th Division then deployed to France; its approximately 23,000 soldiers arrived there by June 8,1918; it then saw major combat in the Second Battle of the Somme and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
Following the 80th Division's departure, the 37th Division began training at Camp Lee; however, their training was halted after the Armistice ended the need to continue deployment.
During World War I, the YMCA played a key role at Camp Lee by providing moral, recreational and lodging services for the thousands of young soldiers training there. For example, the YMCA downtown Richmond building regularly hosted nearly 300 men on Saturday nights and offered free stationery for soldiers to write home.
Included among the many facilities on the base was a large camp hospital situated on 58 acres of land. When the worldwide influenza epidemic reached Camp Lee in the fall of 1918, an estimated 10,000 soldiers were stricken; nearly 700 died during only a few weeks.
The US 1920 Census showed many soldiers stationed at Fort Lee. Ownership of the land was transferred to the Commonwealth of Virginia and designated a game preserve. Later, portions of the land were incorporated into the Petersburg National Battlefield and the Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg.
In 1921, the camp was formally closed, and its buildings were torn down, except one – the so-called "White House". During the war, this two-story wood-framed structure had served as 80th Division Headquarters and as temporary residence for its Commander, Major General Adelbert Cronkhite. Years later, it became known as the "Davis House" in honor of the family that lived there in the 1930s and 40s.

World War II

In October 1940, the War Department ordered the construction of another Camp Lee on the site of the earlier installation. Built as rapidly as the first, construction was still ongoing when the Quartermaster Replacement Training Center started operation in February 1941. Their number grew to 25,000 in 1942, and peaked at 35,000 in 1944.
While the QMRTC was getting underway, the Quartermaster School was transferred to Camp Lee. In October 1941, two months before Pearl Harbor, the Quartermaster School moved from Philadelphia to Camp Lee to begin training officers and non-commissioned officers in the art of military supply and service. A full program of courses was conducted, including Officer Candidate School. By the end of 1941, Camp Lee was the center of both basic and advanced training of quartermaster personnel; that continued throughout the war.
Over the course of the war, Camp Lee's population continued to increase until it became, in effect, the third largest "city" in Virginia, after Norfolk and Richmond. More than 50,000 officers attended Quartermaster Officer Candidate School. Over 300,000 quartermaster soldiers trained at the camp during the war. There was a Regional Hospital with scores of pavilions and literally miles of interlocking corridors capable of housing over 2,000 patients at a time. Additional operations included the Army Services Forces Training Center, the Quartermaster Board, a Women's Army Corps training center, and for a while, a prisoner of war camp and the Medical Replacement Training Center. Camp Lee enjoyed a reputation as one of the most effective and best-run military installations in the country.
Camp Lee was also the home of a Medical Replacement Training Center, but as the Quartermaster training increased, it was decided to relocate the MRTC to Camp Pickett. Later, the QMRTC was re-designated as an Army Services Forces Training Center, but it retained its basic mission of training Quartermaster personnel.

Post–World War II era

1945–1950

In 1946, the War Department announced that Camp Lee would be retained as the center for quartermaster training in the Army. The Quartermaster School continued operation, and in 1947, the Adjutant General's School moved there and remained until 1951.
The Women's Army Corps likewise established its premier training center there from 1948 to 1954. Also in 1948, the first permanent brick and mortar structure—the Post Theater —was constructed.

1950–1965: Cold War Era growth

During the Korean War, tens of thousands of soldiers arrived at Fort Lee to receive logistics training before heading overseas. Official recognition of its permanent status was obtained in 1950 and the post was redesignated Fort Lee.
After the Korean War, progress was made on an ambitious permanent building program.

Air Force SAGE site

In 1956, the Fort Lee Air Force Station on post was selected for a Semi Automatic Ground Environment system direction center site, designated DC-04. The four-story block house was built to house two parallel AN/FSQ-7 Computers that could receive inputs from sensors on the East Coast and provide actionable information on incoming Soviet air threats.
The 1950s and 1960s witnessed almost nonstop modernization efforts as, one-by-one, Fort Lee's temporary wooden barracks, training facilities and housing units began giving way to permanent brick and cinderblock structures. New multi-storied barracks were built in the mid-50s, along with whole communities of Capehart housing for permanent party. In May 1961, the new three-story Quartermaster School, Mifflin Hall, was dedicated. Kenner Army Hospital opened in 1962, replacing the remnants of the old WWII-era facility, and the privately funded Quartermaster Museum opened its doors in 1963. Some years have seen far more change than others, but the overall process of modernization has continued ever since.