A military officer and a composer of military music, Edmund “Snitz” Gruber descended from the family of Franz Gruber, the Austrian composer of “Silent Night”. He was raised in Cincinnati by his parents, Edmund and Genevieve Gruber, both German immigrants, along with his two brothers, and attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1900 until 1904. His subsequent military career would see him stationed across the country and around the world. Following graduation from West Point, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and assigned to the Artillery Corps. After serving in Kansas, Utah and Wyoming he was deployed to the Philippine Islands in early 1906 and returned in the summer of 1908. It was during that time that he composed the famous “Caisson Song”. Legend has it that in 1908 he was selecting a route for his battalion when they were on the move, and at one point stood on high ground. Down below was a marching company with artillery pieces. He heard someone shout, “Keep ‘em rolling,” and he used that idea in his song which he composed when he and his fellow officers decided they needed a regimental song. Gruber’s song was shared by the soldiers yet was not published until 1926. John Philip Sousa turned it into a march in 1917 and the title became “The Field Artillery Song”. After World War II the army decided they needed an official song and Gruber’s was selected. Some of the words were changed by Dr. H.W. Arberg, but most people still know and sing Gruber’s words.
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