When construction work ended, there were accommodations for 60,335 men. On 15 July 1917, the War Department announced that the camp would be named after Colonel Robert E. Lee, a US Army Colonel who later served in the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 2015 Brigadier General Malcolm Frost said, "Every Army installation is named for a soldier who holds a place in our military history." He further explained that the historic names chosen "represent individuals, not causes or ideologies," and that it was done "in the spirit of reconciliation, not division."