Part 15

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.

“As far as the political effect of my actions;--in the first place, I never _can_ get on in politics, and in the second, I would rather have led that charge and earned my colonelcy, than serve three terms in the United States Senate. It makes me feel as though I could now leave something to my children which will serve as an apology for my having existed. [How much his existence needed an apology!] In spite of the strain, and the anything but hygienic conditions under which we have lived, I am in very good health. If we stay here all summer, we shall have yellow fever among us, of course, but I rather think I will pull through that too. I wish they would let us go to Porto Rico, or if not, then let me get all my regiment together in Maine or somewhere like that and get them in trim for the great campaign against Havana in the Fall. I wish you could see these men. I am as proud of them as I can be, and I verily believe they would go anywhere with me. They are being knocked down right and left, however, with the fever. I shan’t take any risks unless I really think I ought to, and now, I begin to believe that I am going to get home safely.”

A letter from Bob Ferguson about the same time backs up his future position in regard to moving the men, and reiterates:

“It was a glorious spin, over trenches and barbed wires instead of oaken panels, however. One never expects to see the like again;--Corinne and Anna must have suffered terribly from Theodore’s wild, whirlwind career! His courage all through was so simple and so true to him. The Spaniards laughed at the Cubans, and said they had no fighting to do until the Americans came;--they ‘kept on coming.’ One officer told Colonel Wood that the Americans were ‘magnanimous, brave, and ferocious.’ If Cervera had stayed in harbor with his ships, we would have been in the devil of a hole between starvation and fever. It is lucky things went as they did.”

And again, on August 6, he writes to me:

“These dreary Cuban days and dark and dismal nights are drawing to a close for the time,--Thank the Lord and Theodore. [The much-criticised “round robin” had had its effect.] It is hardly fair to damn this country that way, however, for in reality, it is most inexplicably beautiful. In the sunshine of the morning, when once in a while an almost refreshing breeze comes, then the tropical valleys bask and smile in the most enticing luxuriance, and entrance one into lazy dreams of fairy-land. The mass of the scarlet acacia, the trails of morning-glories, and lilies, and the hot growth of all kinds,--above all, the graceful and kingly royal palm and his harem, the slender, tall, clustering bamboos,--are all lovely. These things by moon-light were simply inexpressible; however, the real side of nature is deadly sun, over-whelming, drenching rain, dark, drizzly mist and dew, fever, malaria, filth, disgust with everything. Well, this is at an end now, and almost time it were, for there would not be many left to tell the tale if left here all summer as the President and Secretary proposed to leave us only a couple of days ago, but Theodore ‘sicked one’ as your Stewart’s whole pack of pup-dogs could not commence to do. If we take a final fall, it will be at Havana in the autumn and not with yellow fever, if we can help it, here at Santiago. You all had a dreadful time of it, probably far worse than we merry men of the Greenwood. Honestly, while it is all going along and when there is an advance, the spirits rise amazingly and one trips forward as gaily as in Sir Roger or any other airy measure. That, however, is the one really satisfactory sensation. Lying passive in reserve, and being searched and found by the long-range mausers and shrapnel in the bushes, is not so cheerful an occupation; in fact, it is a low proceeding altogether.

“Whooping along from time to time ‘thoro bush--thoro brier,’ with a wildish throng, firing, cheering, laughing, and running,--that, is a very different story, and holding the advance point in spite of orders to retire (!) is another thing to make even novices chuckle inwardly when they once feel they can do it,--but Theodore was the sparkle to all that fun.

“I could make your flesh creep, however, with horror; meanwhile, you can picture to yourself in pleasant nightmares, flocks of vultures and buzzards, the dead and wounded lost in the tangled growth,--and swarms of crabs,--great big land crabs with one, enormous, lobster-like claw, creeping, rustling, scuffling thro’ the dried aloes and palmettoes.... War never changes its hideous phantasms. The heroism of even modern men (and none the less of the women who let them go) is the one thing to glory and hope in. We pack up tonight. My love to all.”

And so ended the brief and glorious career of the Rough Riders, a career which has about it a touch of Roland and Robin Hood. These letters, written _at the time_, are valuable refutations of some bruited questions, and the very people who criticised certain actions of my brother, _at the time_, would be the first, I verily believe, now, to wish they had withheld their criticism.

The depleted regiment, emaciated beyond words, returned to Montauk Point on Long Island, and my husband and I came down from the Adirondack Mountains to meet them at Camp Wyckoff. What a night we spent in a Red Cross tent at the camp! How we talked! How good it was to greet the gallant men again, so many of whom we knew and loved, and how infinitely interesting to come in contact with the wild Westerners about whose courage and determination my brother had written such glowing accounts.

In the last letter my brother wrote to my husband from Santiago, the sentence “As for the political effect of my actions, I never can get on in politics” was soon to be refuted, for hardly had he arrived at Montauk than the politicians flocked surreptitiously to sound him as to the possibility of his running for governor of New York State, but that’s another story!

The throb of parting from their leader was soon to be experienced by the gallant men who had followed Theodore Roosevelt so eagerly in the Cuban jungles. Picturesque to the end, the mustering out of the Rough Riders, under blue autumnal skies at Montauk Point, was the culmination of its romantic career, and many a ferocious fighter and wild bronco-buster turned from the last hand-clasp of his colonel with tears in the eyes which had not flinched before the fiercest Spanish onslaught.

IX

THE ROUGH RIDER STORMS THE CAPITOL AT ALBANY

THE MAN WHO CAN

(Old Saxon for “The King”)

WRITTEN OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT

How shall we know “the man who can”? (That was the Saxon phrase, they say.) Nay, perchance we shall find the man Close to our hearts and lives to-day!

Soldier and patriot, strong of hand, Keen of vision to know the time, Quick and true to the hour’s demand, Poet, too, without rune or rhyme!

Poet, because through mists of sin He finds the best as it yet shall be. Faces evil, yet dares begin To _live_ the good that his soul can see.

Speech like an arrow, swift and straight, Strength that smites to the core of wrong; Smile that mocks but an adverse fate, Heart of a boy, that leaps to song.

Honor scornful of life or place, Courage brightest in sordid strife; Such is the man whose first, best grace Was the simple crown of a stainless life!

--Marion Couthouy Smith.