U.S. Army Command and General Staff
College
Fort Leavenworth has become the
intellectual heart of the Army since the founding of the School of
Application for Cavalry and Infantry, established in 1881 by General William
Tecumseh Sherman. Over the years, this has become the Command and
General Staff school, and over 1,100 majors come each year for a ten- month long
course of instruction. Included in each class are 200 Navy, Air Force,
and Marine officers, as well as international officers from over 85
different countries.
The current
Command and General Staff School is housed in Bell Hall, built in 1959 and
scheduled for replacement by the new Lewis and Clark Center in the summer of
2007. The college consists of the Command and General Staff
School (CGSS), School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), School for
Command Preparation (SCP), and School for Advanced Distributed Learning (SaDL).
SAMS, SCP, and SaDL and the Combined Arms Research Library are housed in the
nearby Eisenhower Hall.
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CGSC class in 2006
Typical CGSC class in the fall of 2006. Staff groups average 17 officers. |
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Artist rendition of the Lewis and Clark Center
The new Lewis and Clark Center is nearing completion, with students and faculty slated to occupy in the summer of 2007. |
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The "Leavenworth Lamp"
The Leavenworth Lamp, or lamp of knowledge greets visitors in Abrams Loop to CGSC. The Lamp will be moved to the new Lewis and Clark Center in 2007. |
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View looking south at the main entrance, Bell Hall
Current home of the Command and General Staff College. |
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Frontier Army museum
The Museum depicts the Frontier Army
(1817-1917) and the history of Fort Leavenworth (1827 to present).
Museum visitors can view one of the largest collections of military
carriages on exhibit. In addition, one of the first airplanes used by
the U.S. Army-- a JN-4D "Jenny"-- used in the Punitive Expedition led by
Brigadier General John J. Pershing in his 1916 pursuit of "Pancho" Villa.
Other exhibits include the carriage used by Abraham Lincoln while visiting
Leavenworth in 1859.
In April 2006, the Museum became the permanent home for the exhibit
"Beyond Lewis and Clark- Exploring the West" that details the expeditions
that surveyed, explored, and guarded the western frontier.
The Museum is
housed in a former riding stable, and during the Second World War, the
building was used as classrooms due to the expansion of the Command and
General Staff College.
Next door, the
Gruber Fitness Center is named for the former post commander, Brigadier General
Edmund L. Gruber. Gruber is best known for composing the Field Artillery
branch song, "As the Caissons Go Rolling Along" that became the Army song "As the
Army Goes Rolling Along." Gruber died in Leavenworth of a heart attack
in a Victorian home on Broadway Street.
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Frontier Army Museum in Andrews Hall |
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Andrews Hall is one of the few remaining "temporary" World War II buildings remaining on post. It was orginally constructed as a classroom and lecture hall for the large number of students that the Command and General Staff College produced to staff a massive worldwide force. |
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Gruber Hall |
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Gruber Fitness Center was built in 1908 as an indoor riding arena and was then known as "The Cavalry Drill Hall." Students at the staff college through 1942 were required to take a class in riding called "equitation." Popular with cavalry officers, infantry officers like Dwight Eisenhower despised the class. It was divided into large classrooms during World War II. The building was named for Brigadier General Edmund L. Gruber, a former commandant of the staff college who composed a song for the Artillery Branch call "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" in 1908. Later modified as "The Army Goes Rolling Along," it was adopted as the Army song in 1956.
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