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Theodore Roosevelt
Chapter VIII: The Rough Rider
by Pearson, Edmund Lester
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In 1897 the Republican Party came again into power; Mr. McKinley
was inaugurated as President. Roosevelt was appointed Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, and came with his family to Washington. The
Secretary of the Navy was Mr. John D. Long.
America was within a year of getting into war, and as usual was
not ready for it. There are men so foolish as to rejoice because
we have never been ready for the wars in which we have taken part
about every twenty or thirty years in our history. This simply
means that they rejoice at the unnecessary deaths of thousands of
other Americans who die from disease in camp, or are killed in the
field through neglect to prepare in advance. Preparation for war
is not wholly the matter of having weapons ready to fight the
enemy. It also means healthy camps for our soldiers to live in,
and readiness to furnish clothing, food and medical supplies. For
lack of these, thousands of our friends and relatives die in every
war we are in. A rebellion had been going on in Cuba for years.
The cruel government of Spain had kept the Cubans in misery and in
rebellion, and disturbed the friendship between Spain and the
United States. It was our duty to see that Cuban expeditions did
not sail from our coast to help their friends, and in this work a
great many ships of our Navy were busy all the time. Nobody liked
to have to do this for we naturally sympathized with the Cubans,
who were making such a brave fight against stupid and tyrannical
governors sent from Spain. One of the last of these was
particularly bad. He herded the Cuban people into camps where they
died of disease and starvation, and he had great numbers of them
shot without mercy. We had justly revolted against the mis-
government of King George III in 1776, but nothing that King
George's governors and generals had done to us was as bad as the
things the Spaniards were doing in Cuba, in 1896 and 1897.
Many of the men in Washington felt that war would come sooner or
later. Roosevelt believed it and worked constantly to have the
Navy ready. He had the support of the President and of Secretary
Long in nearly everything that he proposed, and so was able to do
some useful work. It is important to understand what Roosevelt
thought about war, not only about this, but about all wars. Here
it is in his own words.
I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong
at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals,
I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be
resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid
it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with
sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate
preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never
advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.
[Footnote: "Autobiography," p. 226.]
You will be able to see from what he did while he was President,
when he was in a position where he could have plunged the country
into war half a dozen times, whether these words were true, or
whether he was really the fire-eater which some of his enemies
insisted he was.
He secured from Congress nearly a million dollars, to permit the
Navy to engage in target-practice. To those who were alarmed at
such "waste," he remarked that gun-powder was meant to be burned,
and that sailors must learn to shoot, since in battle, the shots
that hit are the only ones that count. There is nothing wonderful
about such remarks. In looking back at them there seems to be
nothing wonderful about many things that he said and did. They are
merely examples of plain, common-sense, and it appears ridiculous
that anybody should have had to make such remarks, or to fight
hard to get such clearly necessary things done. Yet he did have to
fight for them. It had to be driven into the heads of some of the
men in Congress that it is not the proper use of gun-powder to
keep it stored up, until war is declared, then bring it out,
partly spoiled, and give it to soldiers and sailors, who for lack
of practice, do not know how to shoot straight.
Roosevelt also was able to help in having appointed to command the
Asiatic squadron, a naval officer named Commodore George Dewey.
On February 15, 1898, while affairs were at their worst between
America and Spain, our battleship Maine was blown up in Havana
Harbor. She had gone there on a friendly visit, but now was
destroyed and sent to the bottom. Over two hundred and fifty of
our men were killed. Almost every one knew that war was now
certain. For weeks the country debated as to the cause of the
explosion which sank the Maine, and the matter was investigated by
naval officers assisted by divers. They found that the explosion
had come from the outside. Somebody had set off a mine or torpedo
beneath the ship. Nobody in America disputed this, except a few of
the peace-at-any-price folk, who preferred to think that the
carelessness of our own sailors had been the cause. These
gentlemen always think the best of the people of other nations,
which is a fine thing; but they are always ready to believe the
worst of their own countrymen, which is, on the whole, rather a
nasty trait.
Roosevelt worked at top-speed in the Navy Department, and began to
lay plans for going to the war himself. He believed that it was
right and necessary to fight Spain, and end the horrible suffering
in Cuba. And he believed that it was the duty first and foremost
of men like himself, who advised war, to take part in it. He was
nearly forty years old, and had a family. Many other men in his
place would have discovered that their services were most
important in Washington. They would have stayed in their offices,
and let other men (whom they called "jingoes") do the fighting for
them. It was never Roosevelt's custom to act that way.
Later in February, while Mr. Long was away, and Roosevelt was
Acting-Secretary of the Navy, he sent this cable message to
Commodore Dewey:
WASHINGTON, February 25, '98.
Dewey, Hong Kong
Order the squadron, except the "Monocacy," to Hong Kong. Keep full
of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will
be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic
coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep
"Olympia" until further orders.
ROOSEVELT.
War against Spain was declared in April,--the month in our history
which has also seen the beginning of our Revolution, our Civil
War, and our entrance into the Great War against Germany. Congress
arranged for three regiments of volunteer cavalry to be raised
among the men in the Rockies and on the Great Plains who knew how
to ride and shoot. Here Roosevelt saw his chance. He knew these
men and longed to go to war in their company.
The Secretary of War offered to make him Colonel of one of these
regiments. It is worth while to notice what his reply was. He knew
how to manage a horse and a rifle, he had lived in the open and
could take care of himself in the field. He had had three years in
the National Guard in New York, rising to the rank of Captain.
Many men in the Civil War without one half of his experience and
knowledge, gayly accepted Brigadier-Generalships. Also, in the
Spanish War, another public man, Mr. William J. Bryan, allowed
himself to be made a Colonel, and took full command of a regiment,
without one day's military experience. Yet Roosevelt declined the
offer of a Colonel's commission and asked to be made Lieutenant-
Colonel, with Leonard Wood, of the regular Army as his Colonel.
When you hear or read that Roosevelt was a conceited man, always
pushing himself forward, it may be well to ask if that is the way
a conceited man would have acted.
Colonel Wood was an army surgeon, who had been a fighting officer
in the campaign against the Apaches. He had been awarded the Medal
of Honor, the highest decoration an American soldier can win for
personal bravery.
The new regiment, the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, was
promptly called, by some newspaper or by the public, the "Rough
Riders," and by that name it is always known. Most of the men in
it came from Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and the Indian
Territory, but it had members from nearly every State. Many
Eastern college men were in it, including some famous foot-ball
players, polo-players, tennis champions and oarsmen. The regiment
trained at San Antonio, and landed in Cuba for the attack on
Santiago on June 22. The troopers had to leave their horses
behind, so they were to fight on foot after all. Roosevelt's Rough
Riders, somebody said, had become Wood's Weary Walkers. The
walking was not pleasant to some of the cow-boys, who never used
to walk a step when there was a horse to ride.
Within a day or two they were in a fight at Las Guasimas. It was a
confusing business, advancing through the jungle and fired at by
an enemy they could not see. The Rough Riders lost eight men
killed and thirty-four wounded. The Spaniards were using smokeless
powder, then rather a new thing in war. Two of our regiments at
Santiago were still using black powder rifles, and the artillery
used black powder, which by its smoke showed the enemy just where
they were. Our artillery was always silenced or driven off,
because this country had been so neglectful of its Army and its
men as to let poor, old backward Spain get better guns, and more
modern ammunition than ours. That never should happen with a rich,
progressive country like ours.
A few days later came the fight at San Juan. Colonel Wood had been
put in command of the brigade, so Roosevelt led the regiment of
Rough Riders. It was a fearfully hot day; many men dropped from
exhaustion. The regular regiments of cavalry, together with the
Rough Riders, all fighting on foot, moved forward against the low
hills on which were the Spaniards in block-houses or trenches. For
some while they were kept waiting in reserve, taking what shelter
they could from the Mauser bullets, which came whirring through
the tall jungle grass. This is the most trying part of a fight. It
is all right when at last you can charge your enemy and come to
close quarters with him, but to lie on the ground under fire,
unable to see anybody to fire upon, is the worst strain upon the
soldiers' nerves. As one after another is shot, the officers begin
to watch the men closely to see how they are standing it.
Roosevelt received a trifling wound from a shrapnel bullet at the
beginning of the fight. Later his orderly had a sun-stroke, and
when he called another orderly to take a message, this second man
was killed as he stood near, pitching forward dead at Roosevelt's
feet.
Finally came the order to charge. Roosevelt was the only mounted
man in the regiment. He had intended to go into the fight on foot,
as he had at Las Guasimas, but found that the heat was so bad that
he could not run up and down the line and superintend things
unless he was on horseback. When he was mounted he could see his
own men better, and they could see him. So could the enemy see him
better, and he had one or two narrow escapes because of being so
conspicuous.
He started in the rear of the regiment, which is where the Colonel
should be, according to the books, but soon rode through the lines
and led the charge up "Kettle Hill,"--so-called by the Rough
Riders because there were some sugar kettles on top of it. His
horse was scraped by a couple of bullets, as he went up, and one
of the bullets nicked his elbow. Members of the other cavalry
regiments were mingled with the Rough Riders in the charge,--their
officers had been waiting for orders, and were glad to join in the
advance. The Spaniards were driven out and the Rough Riders
planted their flags on the hill.
But there were other hills and other trenches full of Spaniards
beyond, and again the Rough Riders, mixed with men of other
regiments, went forward. In cleaning out the trenches Roosevelt
and his orderly were suddenly fired on at less than ten yards by
two Spaniards. Roosevelt killed one of them with his revolver. The
Rough Riders had had eighty-eight killed and wounded out of less
than five hundred men who were in the fight.
The American forces were now within sight of Santiago, but they
had to dig in and hold the ground they had taken. There was a
short period in the trenches, which seemed tedious to the riders
from the plains, but was nothing to what men, years later, had to
endure in the Great War against Germany. At last Santiago
surrendered, on July 17.
The war ended within about a month. Commodore Dewey had beaten the
Spanish Fleet at Manila and Admiral Sampson and his fleet had
destroyed the Spanish cruisers which were forced out of Santiago
Harbor on July 3rd, as a result of the Army getting within
striking distance of the city. One other thing of importance was
done by Roosevelt before the regiment was brought home to Montauk
Point and mustered out. After the surrender of Santiago it was
supposed that the war was going on and that there would be a
campaign in the winter against Havana. But the American Army was
full of yellow fever. Half the Rough Riders were sick at one time,
and the condition of other regiments was as bad. The higher
officers knew that unless the troops were taken to some healthier
climate to recover, there would be nothing left of them. Over four
thousand men were sick, and not ten per cent, of the Army was fit
for active work. But the War Department would not listen to the
suggestion that the army be sent for a while to a cooler climate.
What none of the regular Army officers could afford to do,
Roosevelt did. He wrote a letter to General Shafter, the commander
of the expedition, explaining the state of things, and setting out
how important it was, if any of the army was to be kept alive,
that they should be sent away from Cuba, until the sickly season
was over. General Shafter really wished such a letter to be
written, and he allowed the Associated Press reporter to have it
as soon as it was handed to him.
Then, all the Generals joined with Roosevelt in a "Round Robin" to
General Shafter, saying the same things. The Government at
Washington began to take notice, and in a short time ordered the
army home.
Roosevelt had taken a leading part in an act which caused him to
be severely blamed by many, to be denounced by all who worship
military etiquette, and charged with "insubordination" by men who
would rather make a mess of things and do it according to the
rules of the book, than succeed in something useful and do it by
commonsense rules made up at the time. He had shocked the folks
who like red tape, and he had helped save the lives of perhaps
four thousand men.
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