From the greatest down to the least,
The heroes who fronted the deadliest fear,
Leader and lad, each volunteer,
The men whom the whole broad land holds dear
From the western sea to the east!
--Clinton Scollard, 1898.
Those April days of 1898 in Washington were full of an underlying
current of excitement. Drifting toward war we certainly were, and
within a very short few weeks the drift had become a fixed headway,
and Captain Dewey, on the receipt of a certain telegram from a certain
acting secretary of the navy, was to enter Manila Bay, and by that
entrance, and by the taking of Cavite, to change forever the policy
of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt had been criticised for the
amount of ammunition used in practice by the gunners of the navy during
the past spring. He knew only too well that the real extravagance
in either army or navy comes from lack of foresight, and the fine
marksmanship of the sailors and marines was to prove a feather in the
cap of the young assistant secretary.
Everything was bustle and hurry toward the end of April. Within a few
days the assistant secretary was to become the lieutenant-colonel of
the Rough Riders, or, as they were at first called, The First U. S.
Volunteer Cavalry. Mr. McKinley offered to Mr. Roosevelt the colonelcy
of the regiment, but he, with modesty and intelligence, refused the
offer, knowing that he was not as well fitted by experience for the
position as was his friend, Mr. McKinley’s physician, that gallant
surgeon in the army, Leonard Wood, who had had as a younger man so much
experience in the campaign against Geronimo. The two young men, within
a year of each other in age, had been friends for some time, having
many tastes in common, and the same stalwart attitude of unswerving
Americanism. Their friendship had been cemented during the spring of
1898 by the fact that they felt that their views in connection with the
mistakes of Spain in Cuba were very sympathetic. On the long tramps
which they took together on those spring afternoons, they discussed
the all-important question over and over again, and also discussed
the possibility of raising a regiment of men from the fearless, hardy
cowboys and backwoodsmen of the West. It was no sooner known that
Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt were about to raise a regiment to
go to Cuba than every sort and kind of individual flocked to their
standard. The mobilization of the regiment took place in San Antonio,
Texas.
My brother writes to me on May 5, 1898, from Washington:
“You could not give me a more useful present than the watch. It was
exactly what I wished. Thank old Douglas too, for the watch and for
his many many kindnesses. I hope to leave to-morrow, but Wood, who is
now in San Antonio, may keep me here a day or two longer to hurry up
the shipment of the troops, rifles, etc. I much want to get with the
regiment to help get it into shape, but there will be many tedious
and irritating delays, of course. I have about twenty-five ‘gentlemen
rankers’ going with me from the Knickerbocker Club, and twelve
clean-cut stalwart young fellows from Harvard,--such fine boys. I feel
rather like a fake at going, for we may never get down to Cuba at all,
and if we do, I do not think we shall see very serious campaigning,
while proper care will prevent the serious risk of disease.”
And again on May 8:
“Kenneth turned up just in time. [Referring to my husband’s young
Scotch cousin, Kenneth Douglas Robinson, associated with my husband in
business, who was confident that he was doing the right thing to follow
his hero, Theodore Roosevelt, into the Spanish War.] I enlisted him and
sent him off with Bob Ferguson [another Scotch friend] and the rest....”
And again on May 12, after I had sent him a poem, he writes:
“My own darling sister:--I loved the poem and I loved your dear letter;
it made me sure that you really knew just how I felt about going. I
_could not_ stay; that was the sum and substance of it;--although I
realize well how hard it is for Edith, and what a change for the worse
it means in my after life. It will be bitter if we do not get to Cuba,
but we shall have to take things as they come. Your own brother.”
I had doubted whether it was his duty to go to Cuba, feeling it might
be even more his duty to remain in his important and difficult position
of assistant secretary of the navy, but Theodore Roosevelt would not
have been his true self unless he had practised what he had preached so
vigorously.
Kenneth Robinson writes on May 17 from San Antonio:
“Theodore has been drilling us the last few days. The men always do
their best when he is out. He would be amused indeed if he heard
some of the adjectives and terms applied to him, meant to be most
complimentary but hardly fit for publication. We certainly are a
curious aggregation,--cavalry men, cowboys, college men, etc.”
And Bob Ferguson, our very dear friend who had made America his home,
and was like a member of our family, writes early in June:
“You should see some of the broncho busting that has been going on
daily in camp;--the most surprising horsemanship, and though it cost
about a man a day at first, knocked clean out, the busted-rate is now
diminishing. The men, as you can imagine, are well satisfied with their
commanders; Theodore has a great hold on them, and before long he will
be able to do anything he likes with them. The Army officers said they
had never seen such a body of men. One of the troops from Arizona came
almost entirely from one large ranch; they all know each other and will
fight shoulder to shoulder. Our own troop--‘K’ was rather a gay affair
at first, a little gang of Fifth Avenue ‘Dudes’ having constituted
themselves as leaders before Theodore arrived, but now it has a large
number of first rate cow-punchers and sheriffs drafted into it, and has
been increased one-third beyond its normal strength. We are more or
less intelligent, and are looked to as the possible crack troop.”
It is interesting to look back and remember that that Company “K”
was indeed a “crack troop,” and the writer of the above lines became
one of its most gallant officers. What a body of men they were! The
romance of mediæval days was reborn in that regiment, and the strange
part of it all was that they had so much of chivalry about them, in
spite of the roughness of the cowboys, in spite of the madness of the
bronco-busters, in spite, perhaps, of another type of madness injected
into the regiment by the Fifth Avenue “Dudes”; still, that body of
men, as a whole, stood out for gallantry and courage, and gentleness
of spirit wherever gentleness of spirit was needed in the hard days to
come. There was a poem written at that time, “The Yankee Dude’ll Do,”
and I remember the little thrill with which I read it, realizing how
the names that up to that time had been connected with rather gay and
useless lives became bywords for hard, persistent work “to make” good
in the various companies.
Theodore himself writes to me on June 7 in camp near Tampa, Florida:
“First Regiment, U. S. Volunteer Cavalry.
“We are on the point of embarking for Cuba. Yesterday I thought I was
going to be left, and would have to stay on this side during the first
expedition for they intended to take but four troops. Now, however,
they intend to take eight, and unless the transports give out, I shall
go. I need not say how rejoiced I am, for I could not help feeling very
bitterly when it seemed that I would be left. This really is a fine
regiment, and Count Von Goetzen and Capt. Lee, the German and English
Military Attachés, watched our gun drill yesterday in camp with General
Sumner, and all three expressed what seemed to be sincere astonishment
and pleasure at the rapidity with which we had got the men into shape.
I wish you could see how melancholy the four troops that remain behind
feel; it is very hard on them. I had the last two squadrons under my
care on the harassing journey on the cars and it was no slight labor.
How I would like to have Douglas as an officer in this regiment with
me. He would take to it just as I do.
“Well, if our hopes are realized, we sail tomorrow for Cuba, but nobody
can tell how many of us will get back, and I don’t suppose there is
much glory ahead, but I hope and believe we shall do our duty, and the
home-coming will be very very pleasant for those who do come home.”
How my heart ached as I read those last words and realized that the
chances, in all probability, were strongly against his coming home
again.
On June 12:
On board U. S. Transport _Yucatan_.
DARLING CORINNE:
I suppose it is simply the ordinary fortune of war for the most
irritating delays to happen, but it seems to me that the people at
Washington are inexcusable for putting us aboard ship and keeping
us crowded to suffocation on these transports for six days in
Tampa Harbor, in a semi-tropical sun. The men take it with great
resolution and good humour, but if we are kept here much longer,
it cannot fail to have a bad effect upon them. We have been
dismounted, but I care nothing for that if only we are sent, and
given a chance to get into the game. I wish you could see or could
have seen us at some of the crises when, for instance, we spent all
night standing up opposite a railway track, waiting for a train to
come, and finally taking coal cars in the morning.
On the 14th he writes to my husband:
“We are about to sail and as we are at the mouth of the harbor, it is
hardly likely that we can be recalled.... It has been most interesting
even when the work was irritating and full of worry. The regiment
is a wonderful body of men and they have taken to discipline with
astonishing readiness and are wild with eager enthusiasm. Those of us
who come out of it safe will be bound together all our lives by a very
strong tie. You may rest assured I haven’t the slightest idea of taking
any risk I don’t feel I absolutely must take.”
There was no doubt of the strong tie that bound the Rough Riders,
as they were later called, together. We always teased my brother
when, as President, he would suddenly announce that “Happy Jack of
Arizonia,” or some such erstwhile comrade, was eminently fitted for
a position for which the aforesaid “Happy Jack” did not seem to have
strong qualifications. How they loved their leader, and how that love
was returned! Whenever my brother spoke of his “regiment” a note of
tenderness came into his voice such as might be heard in the voice of a
woman when speaking of her lover.
That same day, June 14, Bob Ferguson wrote to me:
“Theodore is absolutely radiating. He just lent me ‘Vanity Fair’ in
return for a box of peppermints, and it has been queer just at this
moment to read about old Curzon street and the Brussels’ Ball; but
Becky made us laugh more than ever after reading nothing but Tactics or
a local newspaper for several weeks.... This country is becoming the
laughing-stock of the world at present, and the German experts really
do not believe the United States can fight. It will bring on big world
complications unless they show their power soon.”
The above opinion is interesting in the light of what the German
experts again felt about the United States before we entered the Great
War in 1917!
On June 15 a letter dated in the Gulf of Mexico runs as follows:
“We are steaming southward through a sapphire sea, wind-rippled under
an almost cloudless sky. There are some forty-eight craft in all, in
three columns,--the black hulls of the transports setting off the gray
hull of the man-of-war. Last evening, we stood up on the bridge and
watched the red sun sink and lights blaze up on the ships for miles
ahead, while the band played piece after piece from the Star Spangled
Banner (at which we all rose and stood uncovered) to The Girl I Left
Behind Me. It is a great historical expedition and I thrill to feel
that I am part of it. If we fail, of course, we share the fate of all
who do fail, and if we are allowed to succeed, for we certainly shall
succeed if allowed, we have scored the first great triumph of what
will be a world movement. All the young fellows have dimly felt what
this means, though the only articulate soul and imagination among
them belong, rather curiously, to Ex-sheriff Capt. Buckey O’Neil of
Arizona.”
The above Buckey O’Neil, leaning over the rail at sunset, would often
quote Browning, my brother used to tell me, or Whitman, or even
Shelley. He was a real “Bret Harte” character, and one of my brother’s
greatest griefs in the days to come was that that gallant officer was
amongst the first to fall. He had just exposed himself to Spanish fire
somewhat unnecessarily, and my brother said to him: “Get down, Buckey;
I cannot spare you.” The other laughingly replied, “There isn’t a
bullet made that can kill me, Colonel,” and literally, as he spoke, a
stray shot struck him and he fell dead across my brother’s knees. But
to return:
June 20, 1898--Troop Ship near Santiago.
All day we have steamed close to the Cuban coast; high
barren-looking mountains rise abruptly from the shore, and at this
distance look much like those of Montana. We are well within the
tropics and at night, the Southern Cross is low above the horizon.
It seems too strange to see it in the same sky with the friendly
Dipper.
And then later:
June 25, 1898--Las Guasimas--
Yesterday we struck the Spaniards and had a brisk fight for two
and a half hours before we drove them out of their position. We
lost twelve men, killed or mortally wounded, and sixty, severely
or slightly wounded. Brodie was wounded,--poor Capron and Ham Fish
were killed; one man was killed as he stood beside a tree with me,
another bullet went through a tree behind which I stood and filled
my eyes with bark. The last charge I led on the left using a rifle
I took from a wounded man. Every man behaved well; there was no
flinching. The fire was very hot at one or two points where the men
around me went down like nine-pins. We have been ashore three days
and were moved at once to the front without our baggage. I have
been sleeping on the ground in a mackintosh, and so drenched with
sweat that I have not been dry a minute day and night. The marches
have been very severe. One of my horses was drowned swimming
through the surf. It was a fierce fight; the Spaniards shot well,
but they did not stand when we rushed.
We received the details of the fight of Las Guasimas on the 4th of
July, I remember, and all night long I sat on my piazza on Orange
Mountain, thinking, with a strange horror, of the danger in which my
brother had been and still was.
On June 27, 1898, another letter, this time dated Santiago:
“We have a lovely camp here by a beautiful stream which runs through
jungle-land banks. The morning after the fight, we buried our dead in
a great big trench, reading the solemn burial service over them, and
all the regiment joined in singing ‘Rock of Ages.’ The woods are full
of land crabs, some of which are almost as big as rabbits; when things
grew quiet, they slowly gathered in gruesome rings around the fallen.”
Bob Ferguson also adds interesting evidence to the courage of the First
Volunteer Cavalry under fire.
Las Guasimas--June 25, 1898.
Theodore and Wood are more than delighted with the conduct of the
men. You never heard such a hail of shot. The enemy, of course,
knew when we would be in the jungle, and we could only guess their
whereabouts. Their volleys opened up from all directions. Theodore
did great work skipping from one troop to another, and directed
them as they were deployed, but we can only trust that this kind
of thing won’t happen too often, for fear of results. It was, in
fact, a surprise party, however, an expected one. Our men rushed
into a known ambush with the careless dash of the cow-puncher.
Once in, they literally had to hug the ground while the trees
above and beside them were torn to shreds.... Theodore has marked
the Spaniard all right--and the name of his regiment will never
be spoken of any too lightly. They really did not understand
fear and would willingly repeat the dose tomorrow. Poor Ham
Fish,--he was such a good-hearted, game fellow, and I got to like
him ever so much on the way down;--it is more than much now!--The
Spaniards showed any amount of skill in their tactics, and only the
extraordinary grit of our men undid their calculation, together
with the good work of a parallel column of Regulars, who cleared
the Spaniards off a flanking ridge in the forest in the finest
style--otherwise they could have out-flanked us on either side and
given us Hell in open sight. So far, it seems like fighting an
army of invisible Pigmies.... Kenneth was awfully good yesterday
after the fight. He was the first to volunteer to help the wounded
when the entire troop was too exhausted to move;--he carried them
for hours until his back gave out.... We really did splendidly
yesterday. The Regulars are to have their turn now. We have been
blooded ourselves. We lost too many officers. One little fellow,
shot right through both hips, was the greatest little sport. He
refused to be attended to until others were made comfortable,
and he lay and smoked his pipe patiently. One man walked to the
hospital with five wounds:--in the neck, right shoulder, right
hand, left thigh, and one other.
It is a matter of interest to print the above extracts, for even when
my brother wrote his book called “The Rough Riders,” he could not
give quite the spirit which the letters, penned at the moment of the
happenings, can so fitly interpret. Bob Ferguson again, on July 5, gave
an important description of my brother:
Before Santiago, July 5, 1898.
We have been having the devil of a fine time of it, shooting
Spaniards, and being “stormed at by shot and shell.” When I caught
up with Theodore, the day of his famous charge, (having been held
in the reserve line until tired of being pelted at from a distance)
“T” was revelling in victory. He had just “doubled up” a Spanish
officer like a jack-rabbit, as he retreated from a block house....
That same evening, having reached the most advanced crest possible,
with about 300 men, and having the whole Spanish Army firing at
us from their entrenchments around the city, the summit of our
ambition was almost reached.
Theodore moved about in the midst of shrapnel explosions like
Shadrach, Meschach & Sons in the midst of the fiery furnace,
unharmed by the vicious Mauser balls or by the buzzing exploding
bullets of the Irregulars.... Theodore preferred to stand up or
walk about snuffing the fragrant air of combat. I really believe
firmly now, that they cannot kill him. It looks, too, somewhat
as if they would not get a chance for a spell, for our lines are
around the Spanish Dog’s throat, and he will be smothered by our
fire in a moment should the fight open once more. It would seem
a shame now to have to damage them any more, for they say the
streets are full of wounded and spent balls shower among them....
Theodore has sure made his mark on the Spaniard,--and the Rough
Riders [the regiment had already ceased to be called the First
Volunteer Cavalry, and was never again known as anything but the
Rough Riders] will _remain_--pitching bronchos and all, afoot
or on horseback!... The “bob whites” whistle all around these
plantations, and transport one straight back to Sagamore Hill on a
summer’s day. The mountains here are glorious; the valleys, a dream
of drooping palms, and dark, cool, shaded mangroves clustered; soft
bamboo waves near the creeks and smiling ridges, once all under
cultivation.
My brother himself, in a letter dated from Santiago, July 19, 1898,
writes:
“Darling Corinne:--‘Triumph tasted’!--for that, one will readily
pay as heavy a price as we have paid; but it is bitter to think
that part of the price was due to the mismanagement of those in
authority. The misery has been fearful. Today, out of my four
hundred odd men in camp, one hundred and twenty-three are under
the doctor’s care. The rest of the six hundred with whom I landed
are dead or in the rear hospitals. I cannot explain the breakdown
of the transportation service, the commissariat, or the hospital
service.”
I quote the above letter for the special purpose of recalling to my
readers the fact that Colonel Roosevelt was much criticised later for
instigating the writing of a “round-robin” letter in the summer, urging
the authorities to bring home the regiments after the victory was won.
Due to the “breakdown” which he describes, the men were dying like
flies, and had that “round robin” (severely censured by my brother’s
enemies) not been written, had the authorities at Washington not
decided to follow the suggestions of Theodore Roosevelt and order our
gallant men back from their death-trap, very few of that expedition to
Cuba would have lived to tell the tale. At the end of the above letter,
after describing in full the sufferings of the men because of lack of
care, he says:
“They have been worn down by the terrific strain of fighting, marching,
digging in the trenches, during the tropical midsummer; they have been
in the fore-front, all through, they never complained though half-fed
and with clothes and shoes in tatters; but it is bitter to think of the
wealth at home, which would be so gladly used in their behalf if only
it could be so used. They are devoted to me, and I cannot get their
condition out of my thoughts. If only you could see them in battle, or
feeding these wretched refugee women and children, whose misery beggars
description. [Did I not say that these wild, strong men of the West
were gentle in heart as well as fierce in courage!]
“Well, it is a great thing to have led such a regiment on the crowning
day of its life. Young Burke [Eddie Burke] is well and is a first-class
man and soldier. I like and respect him. Bob earned his promotion.
The New York men have stood the strain well. I felt dreadfully about
Kenneth’s wound that day, but I was near the line, with my men, nearest
the Spaniard, and I could not have gone back or held back for my own
son. No man was ahead of me when we charged or rushed to the front to
repel a charge; and indeed, I think my men would follow me literally
anywhere. In the hard days I fared absolutely as they did, in food and
bedding,--or rather, the lack of both. Now, yellow fever has broken out
in the Army and I know not when we shall get away, but whatever comes,
it is all right and I am content. Love to little Teddy and all the
others. Your brother.”
The same day he wrote my husband:
“Two of our men have died of yellow fever. We hope to keep it out of
camp, and if we succeed, I trust we shall soon get to Porto Rico.
Whatever comes, I cannot say how glad I am to have been in this. I feel
that I now leave the children a memory that will partly offset the fact
that I did not leave them much money. I have been recommended for the
Colonelcy of this regiment, and for the medal of honor. Of course, I
hope to get both, but I really don’t care very much, for the _thing
itself_ is more important than the reward, and I have led this regiment
during the last three weeks, the crowning weeks of its life. There is
nothing I would have exchanged for having led it on horseback, where,
first of all the army, we broke through the enemy’s entrenchments. By
the way, I then killed a Spaniard myself with the pistol Will Cowles
raked up from the _Maine_. Of the six hundred men with whom I landed,
less than three hundred are left; the others are dead or in the
hospital; the mismanagement has been beyond belief.”
Alas, how sad it seems that the mismanagement should have been beyond
belief at such a time!
On July 27 a letter dated “First Regiment, U. S. Volunteer Cavalry,
in camp near Santiago de Cuba,” was received by my husband. A very
characteristic letter it was, full of the joy of a fight well fought,
and full also, of that tremendous human sympathy with his men,
combined with an intelligent practicality which resulted later in the
“round robin,” requesting that the men who had fought so bravely,
should not be allowed to die of disease unnecessarily by being retained
for no good reason in the broiling heat of a Cuban summer.
“Dear Douglas,” he writes, “we had a bully fight at Santiago, and
though there was an immense amount that I did not exactly enjoy, the
charge itself was great fun. Frankly, it did not enter my head that I
could get through without being hit, but I judged that even if hit, the
chances would be about 3 to 1 against my being killed.