Fort Eisenhower is a major military installation located southwest of Augusta. It is the home of the Georgia Cryptologic Center, the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the U.S. Army Cyber Command, and the Cyber Center of Excellence.
The post was originally named Camp Gordon in honor of John B. Gordon, who was a major general in the Confederate army, a Georgia governor, and a U.S. senator. On March 21, 1956, it was redesignated Fort Gordon. On October 27, 2023, its name was changed again to Fort Eisenhower in honor of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
World War II
In mid-1940, with the threat of war looming, army officials began looking for sites that would be suitable for a division training area. By May 1941 an area in Richmond County had been selected for one of these new training areas. In July the U.S. War Department approved a contract to construct facilities on the new installation; the cost was estimated to be $24 million. An official groundbreaking and flag-raising ceremony took place in October.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, brought the United States into World War II (1941-45) and forced the army to open Camp Gordon earlier than expected. On December 9 Colonel Herbert W. Schmid, camp commander, moved his small staff from his temporary office in the Augusta post office building to the incomplete headquarters building at Camp Gordon. At the same time the 4th Infantry Division began moving to Camp Gordon, establishing the installation as one of the army’s significant training facilities.
The 56,000-acre training site was home to three divisions during the war: the 4th Infantry, the 26th Infantry, and the 10th Armored. After undergoing training at Camp Gordon, these units were shipped to the European theater of operations, where they each served with distinction. From October 1943 to January 1945 Camp Gordon served as an internment camp for foreign prisoners of war. From May 1945 until April 1946 Camp Gordon’s U.S. Army Personnel and Separation Center processed nearly 86,000 personnel for discharge from the army.
Post-World War II Expansion
From early 1946 to June 1947, the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks for convicted criminals was located at Camp Gordon, and the installation was scheduled for deactivation. However, the cold war brought an increased emphasis on military preparedness and gave new life to the camp. In September 1948 the army relocated the Military Police School from Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, to Camp Gordon, and in October 1948 the Signal Corps Training Center was activated.
On March 21, 1956, the camp became a permanent military installation and was redesignated as Fort Gordon. From the 1950s through the 1970s the fort served as a basic-training facility and provided advanced individual training for troops. During the Vietnam War (1964-73), personnel who were headed for Southeast Asia trained in one of two mock Vietnamese villages at Fort Gordon. On October 1, 1974, all signals training was officially consolidated at the fort, followed by the arrival of the army’s Computer Science School during the 1980s.
In 1981 the National Science Center and the United States Army partnered to create the Preview Discovery Center, an interactive educational center for the public, at Fort Gordon. The center later moved to a new facility, Fort Discovery, in 1997. Fort Discovery’s 128,000-square-foot, two-story, hands-on exhibit center closed its doors in 2010.
Twenty-first Century
In 1994 the National Security Agency (NSA) partnered with the Department of Defense to establish the Fort Gordon Regional Security Operations Center (GRSOC). In 2005 the GRSOC became the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Georgia (NSA/CSS GA).
The NSA/CSS GA became the Georgia Cryptologic Center, or NSA Georgia, when it opened its $286 million, 600,000-square-foot facility at Fort Gordon in 2012. It is one of four major NSA/CSS data and operations centers outside of NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Fort Gordon is also home to the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence (CCoE) and the U.S. Army Cyber Command, which works together with the NSA and the Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) to provide intelligence and cyber security to the military at home and abroad. The CCoE was established in 2014 to house military cyber and signal training and instructional schools for marine corps, army, navy, air force, and multinational personnel.
The NSA Georgia at Fort Gordon drew major media attention in 2017, when Reality Winner, a federal intelligence contractor for the NSA, was arrested for leaking a confidential document confirming Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Winner obtained the document while working at Fort Gordon and was sentenced to five years and three months in prison—at the time the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for the unauthorized release of government information to the media.
Fort Eisenhower is a major employer in east Georgia. In 2023 the Augusta Economic Development Authority (AEDA) reported approximately 31,155 military and civilian personnel on site and an economic impact of nearly $2.4 billion annually.
The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act called for the renaming of military installations that honored Confederate soldiers. In 2022 the resulting Naming Commission issued its report, which proposed nine army installations for renaming. Fort Benning (now Fort Moore), near Columbus, and Fort Gordon were among those identified by the commission.
On October 27, 2023, in a ceremony at Barton Field in Augusta, Fort Gordon was redesignated as Fort Eisenhower. The name honors former president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was known to frequent Augusta with his wife, Mamie, before, during, and after his presidency. At the ceremony, Major General Paul Stanton, the fort’s commanding officer, cited Eisenhower’s “dedication to ensuring equal rights for soldiers and citizens alike” as an example of the values the army seeks to uphold.
