Jefferson Barracks: The West's First Military Post

Jefferson Barracks, established on July tenth, eighteen twenty-six, ten miles south of Saint Louis, is the oldest operating United States military installation west of the Mississippi River. It was named for President Thomas Jefferson. The post was conceived as an Infantry School of Practice, a place for hands-on training that West Point could not provide.

What followed was one of the most remarkable rosters in American military history. Many officers who later became Civil War generals trained or served here over the years, among them Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee, who were posted here at different times before they became each other's greatest adversaries.

During the Civil War itself, Jefferson Barracks served as a massive hospital and a recruiting depot for the North. The post operated until nineteen forty-six.