Part 3

“He also devised and worked heartily in the Soldiers’ Employment Bureau, which found fitting work for the crippled men who by loss of limb were unfitted for their previous occupations. This did wonders toward absorbing into the population of the country those who otherwise would have been dependent, and preserved the self-respect of the men. I believe it did more and vastly better work than all the ‘Soldiers’ homes’ combined. For the work in the Allotment Commission he received the special and formal thanks of the State in a joint resolution of the Legislature.”

Nothing was more characteristic of my father’s attitude toward life than his letters during this period to my mother. He realized fully that in leaving his young family he was putting upon his youthful and delicate wife--whose mental suffering during the war must have been great, owing to the fact of her being a Southerner--her full share of what was difficult in the situation. He writes with the utmost frankness of his wish that she might look on the great question of which the war was a symptom from the same standpoint as his, but the beautiful love and trust which existed between them was such that in all these letters which passed so constantly during my father’s labors as Allotment Commissioner, there was never the slightest evidence of hurt feelings or friction of any kind.

In the early fall of 1861 he was struggling to have passed by Congress the bill to appoint Allotment Commissioners, and spent weary days in Washington to achieve that purpose. When the bill was passed and he and Mr. William E. Dodge and Mr. Theodore Bronson were appointed as the three commissioners, he threw himself with all the ardor and unselfishness of his magnificent nature into the hard work of visiting the camps in mid-winter, and persuading the reluctant soldiers to believe that it was their duty to allot a certain portion of their pay to their destitute families.

He writes on January 1, 1862:

I have stood on the damp ground talking to the troop and taking their names for six hours at a time. One of the regiments that I visited last, which is wretchedly officered and composed of the scum of our city, seemed for the first time even to recall their families. We had an order from the General of Division, and the Colonel sent his adjutant to carry out our desires. He came, dirty and so drunk that he could not speak straight, and of course got the orders wrong. All the officers seem to be _in_ with the sutler while the private said he was an unmitigated thief. The delays were so great that I stood out with one of these companies after seven o’clock at night, with one soldier holding a candle while I took down the names of those who desired to send money home. The men looked as hard as I have often seen such men look in our Mission neighborhood, but after a little talking and explaining my object and reminding them of those they had left behind them, one after another put down his name, and from this company alone, they allotted, while I was there, $600.00. This would be increased afterwards by the officers, if they were decent ones, and other men absent on guard and through other reasons. I could not help thinking what a subject for a painting it would make as I stood out there in the dark night, surrounded by the men with one candle just showing glimpses of their faces,--tents all around us in the woods. One man, after putting down five dollars a month, said suddenly: “My old woman has always been good to me, and if you please, change it to ten.” In a moment, half a dozen others followed his example and doubled their allotments.

I enclose a letter for Teedie [Theodore]. Do take care of yourself and the dear little children while I am away, and remember to enjoy yourself just as much as you can. [This sentence is so like my father. Duty was always paramount, but joy walked hand in hand with duty whenever it legitimately could.]

I do not want you not to miss me, but remember that I would never have felt satisfied with myself after this war is over if I had done nothing, and that I do feel now that I am only doing my duty. I know you will not regret having me do what is right, and I do not believe you will love me any the less for it.

Yours as ever, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

This particular letter is very characteristic of the father of President Roosevelt--a man of the qualities which his country has grown to associate with its beloved “Colonel.” In my brother’s case they were the direct inheritance from the man who stood out knee-deep in mud using his wonderful personality to make those hard-faced drafted men remember their own people at home, and at the same time writes to the lovely mother of his children to try and enjoy herself as much as possible in his absence.

My mother’s answers to my father’s letters were very loving. Alone, and delicate, she never dwells on loneliness or ill health, but tells him the dear details of the home he loved so well. On January 8, 1862, she writes: “Teedie came down stairs this morning looking rather sad, and said ‘I feel badly--I have a tooth ache in my stomach.’--later he asked if ‘Dod’ (God) was a fox?!--this after being shown a picture of a very clever looking fox! He is the most affectionate and endearing little creature in his ways.” One can well imagine how the lonely father, doing his distant and gruelling duty, treasured the dainty letters full of quaint stories of childish sayings. In another and later missive there is a description of a birthday supper-party in which “Teedie” is host to his cousins; it runs as follows: “Teedie, the host, was too busy with his chicken and potatoes to converse much, but as soon as he finished he made the sage remark that he ‘loved chicken, roast beef and everything that was good better than salt water.’ This speech occasioned a roar of laughter, and was evidently thought very witty. Teedie, too, seemed to be under the false impression that it was clever. He seemed to be inflated with vanity for some time afterwards!” How gladly the tired man, after long days in the saddle, and evenings of effort with sullen soldiers, must have turned to just such humorous accounts of the small boy who always said or did something quaint, which lost nothing in the picture drawn by the facile pen of his mother.

Theodore Roosevelt writes his wife again in January, 1862, a letter interesting because of his attitude toward the German regiments. He says:

“We are continually at work now, and to-day saw three regiments, but even at this rate, it will be long before I see you again. They were all Germans to-day--a motley crew, having few friends and frequently no characters. We had been told that we ran the risk of our lives by going to these regiments, and much more nonsense of the same kind, but the only risk we ran has been from starvation. We were out talking to the men until very late, and then found a German dinner which Dodge could eat nothing of but the brown bread. He wanted to be polite, however, and I was much amused with his statement that he would ride five miles to get such bread, which was literally a fact, however, I have no doubt, in his state of starvation.

“The men, as Germans always do, took time to consider, and we left them to describe the allotment idea to other persons. However, after due consideration, a fair number sent money home. These Germans were generally of the lowest characters, and with the exception of one regiment disappointed me, although I have no doubt they will fight well. There are some 12,000 of them.

“This morning I saw that our efforts are noticed in _The World_ and _The Tribune_. You have seen, I suppose, that we have been mentioned several times in _The Times_. This is particularly satisfying as the papers threatened once to be down on us, which would lose for us the confidence of the soldiers.”

The letters all give vivid accounts of his experiences, differing in interest. He speaks of General Wadsworth, the grandfather of our present United States senator, and says that the general “helped to make my bed when I spent one night with his division.”

In an interim of work, on February 7, he writes of his invitation to Mrs. Lincoln’s ball, at which he says he had a delightful time.

“Mrs. Lincoln in giving the Ball, stated that she gave it as a piece of economy in war time, and included those diplomats, senators, congressmen and others, that it had been previously the habit to invite at a number of formal dinners. No one lower in the army than the Division General,--not even a Brigadier, had an invitation to the Ball, and of course there was much grumbling and a proportionate amount of envy. Some complained of the supper, but I have rarely seen a better, and often a worse one. Terrapin, birds, ducks, and everything else in great profusion when I was in the dining room, although some complained of the delay in getting into the room, as we went in parties.

“I spent all of yesterday kicking my heels in the ante-room of the Secretary of War, and in making out an order for him which he promised to sign and afterwards refused. [How history repeats itself!] I was with him about two hours, altogether, and received any number of the highest kind of compliments, but I wanted a more important proof of his good feeling which I did not get. I still hope that I may get it through the President.”

On February 12, 1862, comes this description of the delightful visit to Newport News and he says:

“All the officers received us in such a hospitable spirit and the weather assisted in making our stay agreeable. I passed two of the pleasantest days that I have enjoyed when away from home. General Mansfield suggested some practice with the parrot gun, and one of those sad accidents occurred, for a gun burst and two men were killed.

“We have been treated like princes here. The steamboat was put at our disposal and when, through a misunderstanding, it left before we were on board, another one was immediately sent with us. I enclose several things to keep for me.”

Amongst the enclosures was a note which is sufficiently interesting to give in facsimile.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON

MR. ROSEVALT.

_Dear Sir_:

I very much regretted that a severe headache confined me to my room on yesterday, this morning I find we are expected to hold a noon reception which will be over by three and a half o’clock at which time I will be very happy to have you ride with us.

Very truly yours MRS. A. LINCOLN.

This quaint missive reminds me of the fact of my father’s kindly tolerance of “Mrs. A. Lincoln’s” little peculiarities. I remember how he used to tell us, when occasionally he was invited, as this letter says, to “ride” with her, that he would also be invited to stop at the shop where she bought her bonnets, and give his advice on which bonnet was especially becoming!

In an earlier letter, after referring to an interview with Secretary Stanton, he speaks of his apparent decision of character. But he was disappointed when he could not, in the beginning, make the secretary take his point of view about the Allotment Commission. Later, however, he received the full support of Secretary Stanton.

In a letter dated February 5 he speaks of “justified pleasure” as follows:

“I find that only about six men under fifty [he himself was only twenty-nine] are invited to the President’s to-night, and I have determined to go for a short time, at least. There will be the largest collection of notables there ever gathered in this country, and it would probably be a sight worth remembering.”

Under date of Washington, February 14, he writes again:

“I have so many acquaintances here now that I could easily find a temporary companion. Hay [John Hay] is going with me to Seward’s to-night, and I am hoping to procure the pass for your mother. [My grandmother was most anxious to get back to her own people in the South]. In Baltimore I saw, or fancied I saw, on the faces of our class of the inhabitants, their feelings in consequence of the news just received of the taking of Roanoke Island. They looked very blue. The sutlers here are serious obstacles in getting allotments. As soon as _we_ see a Regiment and persuade the men to make allotments, _they_ send around an agent to dissuade them from signing their names, convincing them that it is a swindle because _they_ want the money to be spent in Camp and go into their pockets instead of being sent home to the poor families of the men, who are in such want.

“I enclose you a flower from the bouquet on the table of the Executive Mansion. Also a piece of silk from an old-fashioned piano cover in Arlington House.”

As I opened the letter, the flower fell to dust in my hands, but the little piece of green silk, faded and worn, had evidently been treasured by my mother as being a relic of Arlington House.

On February 27, 1862, his stay in Washington was drawing to a close, and my father regretted, as so many have done, that he had not kept a diary of his interesting experiences. He writes on September 27:

“All those whom I have seen here in Washington in social intercourse day by day will be characters in history, and it would be pleasant to look over a diary hereafter of my own impressions of them, and recall their utterly different views upon the policy which should be pursued by the Government. I have rarely been able to leave my room in the evening, for it has been so filled with visitors, but I have not felt the loss of liberty from the fact that those who were my guests I would have taken a great deal of trouble to see, and never could have seen so informally and pleasantly anywhere except in my own room.

“It has, of course, been more my duty to entertain those whose hospitality I was daily receiving, in the camps, by invitations to drop in during the evening; all of these are striving to make their marks as statesmen, and some, I am sure, we will hear from hereafter.”

On March 1, 1862, he says:

We have all been in a state of excitement for some days past, caused by movements in the Army foreshadowing a general battle. The snow which is now falling fast, has cast a damper over all our spirits.... Several of the Generals have stated to me their belief that the war, as far as there was any necessity for so large an army, would be closed by some time in May,--probably the first of May. If so, my work will be all over when I return to New York, and I can once more feel that I have a wife and children, and enjoy them.

It is Sunday afternoon, and I have a peculiar longing to see you all again, the quiet snow falling outside, my own feelings being very sad and that of those around being in the same condition makes me turn to my own quiet fireside for comfort. I wish we sympathized together on this question of so vital moment to our country, but I know you cannot understand my feelings, and of course I do not expect it.

YOUR LOVING HUSBAND WHO WANTS VERY MUCH TO SEE YOU.

One can well imagine the note of sadness in the strong young man who had relinquished his urgent desire to bear arms because of the peculiar situation in which he found himself, but who gave all his time and thought and physical endurance to the work vitally needed, and which he felt he could have handled better with the sympathy of his young wife, whose anxiety about her mother and brothers was so poignant and distressing. Never, however, in the many letters exchanged between the parents of my brother, Theodore Roosevelt, was there one word which was calculated to make less possible the close family love and the great respect for each other’s feelings.

In the last letter quoted above, one feels again that history does indeed repeat itself, when one thinks that it was written in March, 1862, and that those “generals” of whom my father speaks were expecting that no large army would be needed after May 1 of that year, when in reality the long agony of civil war was to rack our beloved country for nearly three years more. This was proven shortly after to my father, and in the following October he is writing again from Baltimore, and this time in a less wistful mood:

Since I last wrote you I have enjoyed my pleasantest experiences as Allotment Commissioner. The weather was lovely our horses good and Major Dix accompanied us from the Fortress to Yorktown. It was about twenty-five miles of historic ground passing over the same country that General McClellan had taken his army along last spring.

First comes the ruins of the little town of Hampton, then through Big Bethel where Schanck was whipped, to the approaches to Yorktown. There ravines have been cut through miles of roads made, and immense breastworks thrown up by our army.

Suydam was away but the rest of General Keyes’ staff received us most hospitably, and after dinner furnished us with fresh horses to visit the regiments, one of their number accompanying us.

I had practise for both my French and German in the Enfans Perdus, Colonel Comfort’s regiment and it was quite late before our return. As I had broken my eyeglasses I had to trust entirely to my horse who jumped over the ditches in a most independent manner. We all sat up together until about twelve except Bronson who had seemed used up all day, and had not accompanied me to the regiments. He seemed to feel the shock of the fall when the car ran off the track, and not to recover from it so easily as myself.

Next morning we rode another twenty-five miles to Newport News to see the Irish Brigade. General Corcoran was there, and accompanied us to the regiments first suggesting Irish whiskey to strengthen us. At dinner ale was the beverage and after dinner each Colonel seemed to have his own particular tope. On our return they made an Irish drink called “scal thun” and about one o’clock gave us “devilled bones.” The servant was invited in to sing for us and furnished with drinks at odd times by the General, who never indulged, however, himself to excess. We then went the grand rounds with the General at two in the morning, arrested two officers for not being at their posts and returned at half past three, well prepared to rest quietly after a very fatiguing day, and one of the most thoroughly Irish nights that I ever passed.

Next morning (yesterday) we had a delightful ride over to Fortress Monroe, and had lunch at General Dix’s before leaving in the boat.

A dozen of the officers were down at the boat, and we felt as we bid goodbye to some of them, like leaving old friends....

Dearest: a few words more and I must close. Bronson has a very bad cold and decides that he will leave me to-morrow. If well enough he will undoubtedly call on you. Of course this makes me doubly homesick but I must see it through.

Goodbye. Yours as ever, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Again on October 18, having apparently been able to return for a brief visit to his family, he writes from Niagara:

“I was able to get a top berth and retired for the 31st time in two months to spend the night on the railroad. My three nights at home have made it hard, rather than easier, to continue my journeys.

“All our party started from Albany to Fonda, and I had a hard day’s work for the men had been deceived by the bounty and were suspicious about everything regarding the Allotment Commission. The officers’ dinner was a good deal like pigs eating at a trough. When at night three companies had not yet been visited, I determined to do it wholesale. I had two tents pitched and occupied one already prepared, placing a table, candles and allotment roll in each. I then had the three companies formed into three sides of a square and used all my eloquence. When I had finished they cheered me vociferously. I told them I would be better able to judge who meant the cheers by seeing which company made most allotments. [This sentence of my father’s makes me think so much of my brother’s familiar “shoot; don’t shout!” when he would receive vociferous cheers for any advice given.] I thus raised the spirit of competition and those really were the best that I had taken during the day. By eight o’clock we found our work done, dark as pitch, and rain descending in torrents, but still the work was done.”

These letters give, I think, a vivid picture of my father’s persistence and determined character, and the quality of “getting there,” which was so manifestly the quality of his son as well, and at the same time the power of enjoyment, the natural affiliation with his humankind, and always the thoughtfulness and consideration for his young wife left with her little charges at home.

In that same home the spirit of the war permeated through the barriers of love raised around the little children of the nursery, and my aunt writes of the attitude of the small, yellow-haired boy into whose childish years came also the distant din of battle, arousing in him the military spirit which even at four years of age had to take some expression. She says: “Yesterday Teedie was really excited when I said to him that I must fit his zouave suit. His little face flushed up and he said, ‘Are me a soldier laddie too?’ and when I took his suggestion and said, ‘Yes and I am the Captain,’ he was willing to stand for a moment or two to be fitted.” Even then Theodore Roosevelt responded to his country’s call, and equally to the discipline of the superior officer!

II

GREEN FIELDS AND FOREIGN FARING

From the nursery in 20th Street my early memories turn with even greater happiness to the country place which my parents rented at Madison, N. J., called Loantaka, where we spent several summers. There the joy of a sorrel Shetland pony became ours--(Pony Grant was his name)--a patriotic effort to commemorate the name of the great general, still on the lips of every one, whose indomitable will and military acumen had at that very moment been the chief factor in bringing the Civil War to a close. I, however, labored under the delusion that he, the general, was named after the pony, which seemed to me at the time much the more important of the two personalities. The four-legged Grant was quite as determined and aggressive as his two-legged namesake, and he never allowed any of us to be his master. When my father first had him brought to the front door of the country home at Madison, I shall never forget the thrill of excitement in the breasts of the three little children of the nursery. “Who will jump on his back?” called out my father gaily.

It has always been the pride of my life that, although I was only about four years old, I begged for the privilege before the “boys” were quite ready to decide whether to dare the ferocious glance in his dark eyes. Owing to my temerity he was presented to me, and from that time on was only a loan to my brothers. Each in turn, however, we would climb on his back, and each in turn would be repeatedly thrown over his head, but having shown his ability to eject, he would then, satisfied by thus proving his superiority, become gentle as a really gentle lamb. I qualify my reference to lambs, remembering well the singularly _ungentle_ lamb which later became a pet also in the family.