Social Science: Visit a Historic Site or Historic Home in Region: Jefferson Barracks
The Jefferson Barracks is located on the Mississippi River at Lemay, Missouri, south of St. Louis. Jefferson Barracks stood as an important and highly active U.S. military installation from 1826 through 1946. Jefferson Barracks stands as oldest operating U.S. military installation west of the Mississippi River. In 1827 the military post was lawfully named Jefferson Barracks in honor of Thomas Jefferson who had died the year before. The first conflict that the men of Jefferson Barracks were involved with was the Black Hawk War in 1832. Troops were deployed from Jefferson Barracks to drive hostile Indians back into their village in present day Iowa. Jefferson Barracks grow into a major military post during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) when it assisted as a rest and supply station for most U.S. troops deploying to Mexico. Jefferson Barracks remained the recruiting center for outfitting and training most of the regiments organized for the Mexican-War in 1846, and upon the arrival of the victorious U.S. forces in 1848, many were positioned to Jefferson Barracks due to their strategic location and healthful condition. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Jefferson Barracks functioned as a military hospital for both sides and a recruitment depot for the North. In 1862 construction of the Western Sanitary Commission's hospital facilities began at Jefferson Barracks. By the time that the hospital facilities stood complete, it could hold three thousand patients. Through the end of the first year of the war, above five thousand sick and wounded had been admitted and, by the end of the war, well above eighteen thousand soldiers had been cared for at Jefferson Barracks Hospital. The declaration of the Spanish-American War in 1898, numerous active Army and volunteer regiments were,