My high school was named after Farragut, and our mascot was the Admirals. I feel like he's not super well-known, other than by Civil War buffs, but his life story was neat, and his leadership had a significant impact on the course of the war.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Farragut
As a white boy from the South, I also grew up hearing plenty of praise for Robert E. Lee. The whole "Southern gentleman" spiel: including from my own family, most notably from my prideful grandmother who would say to her dying day that she considered herself a Southerner first and an American second.
My mother's side of the family owned a cattle farm in West TN. We never owned slaves, to my knowledge, but I do have a relative buried at the Battle of Franklin historical site south of Nashville, TN. I've visited.
Recall that not everyone from Tennessee fought on the Confederacy's side. The Civil War tore families right down the middle.
I can't resurrect my ancestor and ask him why he threw his life away in defense of a treasonous cause, and a racist institution that in the end only benefitted those richer and more powerful than he. I can only accept it.
I think it speaks to the potency of Confederate propaganda and pro-southern historical revisionism that you'll still find in this country 160 years later. See: Meme above.
Never really thought too much about this, or the significance of comparing Lee's and Farragut's stories until much later in my life.
History is made up of individual decisions, and some of them have world-changing consequences. Those in positions of power do not escape history's judgment.
