August 19, 2025 • 25 mins
Join Theodore Roosevelt as he recounts his thrilling experiences with The Rough Riders, the legendary 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry formed in 1898 for the Spanish-American War. As Lt. Colonel and second-in-command, Roosevelt vividly portrays the brave men and their spirited horses, the challenges they faced, and the fierce battles they fought in Cuba. He paints a picture of soldiers forged from the rugged wilderness, accustomed to the wild and the unpredictable. With a passion for adventure and an eagerness for action, these “grim hunters of the mountains” were ready to face any foe. Roosevelt’s account is a stirring tribute to their courage and camaraderie, making it a compelling listen for history enthusiasts.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section sixteen of the Rough Writers by Theodore Roosevelt. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by William
Peck Appendix D corrections. It has been suggested to me
that when Bucky O'Neill spoke of the vultures tearing our dead,
he was thinking of no modern poet, but of the
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words of the prophet Ezekiel. Speak, until every feathered fowl,
ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink
the blood of the princes of the earth. At San Juan,
the sixth Cavalry was under Major Leebol, a triede and
gallant officer. I learned from a letter of Lieutenant Macnamie
that it was he, and not Lieutenant Hartwick, by whose
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orders the troopers of the ninth cast down the fence
to enable me to ride my horse into the lane.
But one of the two lieutenants of b troop was
overcome by the heat that day. Lieutenant Rining was with
his troop until dark one night during the siege, when
when we were digging trenches, a curious stampede occurred, not
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in my own regiment, which it may be necessary some
time to relate. Lieutenants W. E. Ship and W. H.
Smith were killed not far from each other while gallantly
leading their troops on the slope of Kettle Hill. Each
left a widow and young children. Captain now Colonel A. L. Mills,
the brigade Adjutant General, has written me some comments on
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my account of the fight. On July first. It was
he himself who first brought me word to advance. I
then met Colonel Dorris, who bore the same message. As
I was getting the regiment forward. Captain Mills was one
of the officers I had sent back to get orders
that would permit me to advance. He met General Sunder
who gave him the orders, and he then returned to me.
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In a letter to me, Colonel Mills says, in part,
I reached the head of the regiment as you came
out of the lane and gave you the orders to
enter the action. These were that you were to move
with your right resting along the wire fence of the
lane to the support of the regular cavalry, then attacking
the hill. We were facing the red roof house. Yonder
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is your objective? I said to you. You moved out
at once and quickly forged to the front of your regiment.
I rode in the rear, keeping the soldiers and troops
closed and in line. As well as the circumstances and
conditions permitted. We had covered I judge from one half
to two thirds to distance to Kettle Hill, when Lieutenant
Colonel Garlington, from our left flank called to me that
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troops were kneaded in the meadow across the lane. I
put one troop, not three, as stated in your account,
across the lane and went with it. Advancing with the troop,
I began immediately to pick up troopers of the ninth
Cavalry who had drifted from their commands, and soon had
so many they demanded nearly all my attention. With a
line thus made up the coward troopers on the left
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and yours on the right. The portion of Kettle Hill
on the right of the red roof house was first carried.
I very shortly thereafter had a strong firing line established
on the crest nearest the enemy, from the corner of
the fence around the house to the low ground on
the right of the hill, which fired into the strong
line of conical straw hats, whose brims showed just above
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the edge of the Spanish trench directly west of that
part of the hill. These hats made a fine target.
I have placed a young officer of your regiment in
charge of the portion of the line on top of
the hill, and was about to go to the left
to keep the connection of the brigade kept. The mcblain
ninth Cavalry just came up on the hill from the
left and rear when the shots struck. That put me
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out of the fight. There were many holy erroneous accounts
of the Guassimas fight published at the time, for the
most part written by newspaper men who were in the
rear and utterly ignorant of what really occurred. Most of
these accounts possessed a value so purely ephemero as to
need no notice. Mister Stephen Bonzo, however, in his book
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The Fight for Santiago, cast one of them in a
more permanent form, and I shall discuss one or two
of his statements. Mister Bonzo was not present at the fight,
and indeed, so far as I know, he never at
any time was with the cavalry in action. He puts
in his book a map of the supposed skirmish ground,
but it bears to the actual scene of the fight,
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only the well known likeness borne by Mammoth t Massidon.
There was a brook on the battleground, and there is
a brook in mister Bonzil's map. The real brook, flowing
down from the mountains, crossed the valley road and ran
down between it and the hill trail, going nowhere near
the ladder. The Bonzo Brook flows at right angles to
the course of the real brook and crosses both trails.
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That is, it runs uphill. It is difficult to believe
that the Bonzel map could have been made by any
man who had gone over the hill trail followed by
the rough riders, and who knew where the fighting had
taken place. The position of the Spanish line on the
Bonzel map is inverted compared to what it really was
on page ninety. Mister Bonzol says that in making the
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precipitate advance, there was a rivalry between the regulars and
rough riders, which resulted in each hurrying recklessly forward to
strike the Spaniards first. On the contrary, the official reports
showed that General Young's column waited for some time after
it got to the Spanish position, so as to allow
the rough riders who had the more difficult trail to
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come up. Colonel Wood kept his column walking at a
smart pace, merely so that the regulars might not be
left unsupported when the fight began, and as a matter
of fact, it began almost simultaneously on both wings. On
page ninety one, mister Bonzol speaks of the full, hearty
formation of a solid column along a narrow trail, which
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brought them the rough Riders within point blank range of
the Spanish rifles and within the unobstructed sweep of their
machine guns. He also speaks as if the advance should
have been made with the regiment deployed through the jungle.
Of course, the only possible way by which the rough
Riders could have been brought into action and time to
support the regulars was by advancing in calm along the
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trail at a good smart gate. As soon as our
advance guard came into contact with the enemy's outposts, we deployed.
No firing began for at least five minutes after Captain
Capron sent back word that he had come upon the
Spanish outpost. At the particular point where this occurred, there
was a dip in the road which probably rendered it
in Capron's opinion better to keep part of his men
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in it. In any event, Captain Capron, who was as
skillful as he was gallant, had ample time between discovering
the Spanish outposts and the outbreak of the firing to
arrange his troops in the formation he deemed best. His
troop was not in solid formation. His men were about
ten yards apart. Of course. To have walked forward deployed
through the jungle prior to reaching the ground where we
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were to fight would have, been, of course, a procedure
so foolish as to warrant the summary court martial of
any man directing it. We could not have made half
a mile an hour in such a formation, and would
have been at least four hours too late for the fighting.
On page ninety two, mister Bonzol says that Captain Capron's
troop was ambushed and that it received the enemy's fire
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a quarter of an hour before it was expected. This
is simply not so. Before the column stopped, we had
passed the dead Cuban killed in the preceding days skirmish,
and General Wood had notified me, on information he had
received from Capron, that we might come into contact with
the Spaniards at any moment, and as I have already said,
Captain Capron discovered the Spanish outpost, and we halted and
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partially deployed the column before the firing began. We were,
at the time exactly where we had expected to come
across the Spaniards, Mister Bonzol, after speaking of L Troop ads,
the remaining troops of the regiment had traveled more leisurely
and more than half an hour elapsed before they came
up to Capron support. As a matter of fact, all
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the troops travel at exactly the same rate of speed,
although there were stragglers from each and when k Pron
halted and sent back word that he had come upon
the Spanish outposts, the entire regiment closed up, halted, and
most of the men sat down. We then, some minutes
after the first word had been received, and before any
firing had begun, received instructions to deploy. I had my
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right wing partially deployed before the first shots between the
outputs took place. Within less than three minutes, I had
G Troop with Llewewyn Greenway and Leahy, and one platoon
of K Troop under Kine on the firing line, and
it was not until after we reached the firing line
that the heavy volley firing from the Spaniards began. On
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page ninety four, mister Bozo says a fixatious delay occurred
before the two independent columns could communicate and advance with
concerted action. When the two columns were brought into communication,
it was immediately decided to make a general attack upon
the Spanish position. With this purpose in view, the following
disposition of the troops was made before the advance of
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the brigade all along the line was ordered. There was
no communication between the two columns prior to the general attack,
nor was any order issued for the advance of the
brigade all along the line. The attacks were made wholly independently,
and the first communication between the calms was when the
right wing of the rough Riders, in the course of
their advance by their firing, dislodged Expandards from the hill
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across the ravine to the right, and then saw the
Regulars come up that hill. Mister Bonzel's account of what
occurred among the Regulars parallels his account of what occurred
among the rough Riders. He states that the squadron of
the tenth Cavalry delivered the main attack upon the hill,
which was the strongest point of the Spanish position, and
he says of the troopers of the tenth Cavalry that
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their better training enabled them to render more valuable service
than the other troops engaged. In reality, the tenth cavalrymen
were deployed in support of the First, though they mingle
with them in the assault proper, and so far as
there was any difference at all in the amount of
work done, it was in favor of the First. The
statement that the tenth Cavalry was better trained in the
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first and rendered more valuable service as not the slightest
basis whatsoever of any kind sort or description. In fact,
the tenth Cavalry did well what it was required to
do as an organization in this fight. It was rather
less heavily engaged and suffered less loss actually and relatively
than either the First Cavalry or the rough Riders. It
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took about the same part that was taken by the
left wing of the rough Riders, which wing was similarly
rather less heavily engaged than the right and center of
the regiment. Of course, this is a reflection neither on
the tenth Cavalry nor on the left wing of the
rough Riders. Each body simply did what it was ordered
to do, and did it well. But the claim that
the tenth Cavalry did better than the first or bore
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the most prominent part in the fight is like making
the same claim for the left wing of the rough Riders.
All the troops engaged did well, and all alike are
entitled to share in the honor of the day. Mister
Bonzel out Spaniards the Spaniards themselves as regards both their
numbers and their loss. These points are discussed elsewhere. He
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develops for the Spanish side to account for their retreat
a wholly new explanation, viz. That they retreated because they
saw reinforcements arriving for the Americans. The Spaniards themselves make
no such claim. Lieutenant de Guerro asserts that they retreated
because news had come of a wholly mythical American advance
on Moral Castle. The Spanish official report simply says that
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the Americans were repulsed, which is about as accurate a
statement as the other two. All three explanations those by
General Rubin, by Lieutenant to Jerrol and by mister Bonzel alike,
are precisely on a par with the first Spanish official
report of the Battle of Manila Bay, in which Admiral
Dewey was described as having been repulsed and forced to retire.
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There are one or two minor mistakes made by mister Bonzel.
He states that on the roster of the officers of
the rough Riders there were ten west Pointers. There were three,
one of whom resigned. Only two were in the fighting.
He also states that after Las squassimas brigadier General Young
was made a major general and Colonel Wood a brigadier general,
while the commanding officers of the first and tenth Cavalry
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were ignored in this shower of promotions. In the first place,
the commanding officers of the first and tenth Cavalry were
not in the fight, only one squadron of each having
been present. In the next place, there was no shower
of promotions at all. Nobody was promoted except General Young,
saved to fill the vacancies caused by death or by
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promotion of General Young. Wood was not promoted because of
this fight. General Young most deservedly was promoted soon after
the fight. He fell sick. The command of the brigade
then fell upon Wood, simply because he had higher rank
than the other two regimental commanders of the brigade, and
I then took command of the regiment, exactly as Lieutenant
colonel's Veil and Baldwin had already taken command of the
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first and tenth Cavalry when their superior officers were put
in charge of brigades. After the San Juan fighting, in
which Wood commanded a brigade, he was made a brigadier general,
and I was then promoted to the nominal command of
the regiment, which I was already commanding. In reality, mister
Bonzell's claim a superior efficiency for the Coward regular regiments
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as compared with the White regular regiments does not merit discussion.
He asserts that General Wheeler bought on the Glossimus fight
in defiance of orders Lieutenant Miley, and his book in
Cuba with Shafter on page eighty three shows that General
Wheeler made his fight before receiving the order which it
is claimed he disobeyed. General Wheeler was in command Ashore.
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He was told to get in touch with the enemy,
and being a man with the fighting edge, this meant
that he was certain to fight. No general who was
worth his salt would have failed to fight under such conditions.
The only question would be as to how to fight
was to be made. War means fighting, and the soldier's
cardinal sin is timidity. General Wheeler remained throughout Steadfest against
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any retreat from before Santiago, But the merit of keeping
the army before Santiago without withdrawal until the city fell
belongs to the authorities at Washington, who, at this all
important stage of the operations showed to mark the advantage
in overruling the proposals made by the highest generals in
the field looking towards partial retreat or toward the abandonment
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of the effort to take the city. The following note,
written by Sergeant E. G. Norton of B Troop, refers
to the death of his brother, Oliver B. Norton, one
of the most gallant and soldierly men in the regiment,
on July first, I, together with Sergeant Campbell and Troopers
Bardshard and Dudley Dean, and my brother who was killed
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and some others, was at the front of the calm
right behind you. We move forward, following you as you
rode to where we came upon the troopers of the
ninth Cavalry and a part of the first lying down.
I heard the conversation between you and one of the
two of the officers of the ninth Cavalry. You ordered
a charge, and the regular officers answered that they had
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no orders to move ahead. Whereupon you said, then let
us through and march forward through the lines our regiment falling.
The men of the ninth and first Cavalry then jumped
up and came forward with us. Then you waved your
hat and gave the command to charge, and we went
up the hill on the top of Kettle Hill. My brother, however,
be Norton, was shot through the head and in the
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right wrist. It was just as you started to lead
the charge. In San Juan Hills ahead of us. We
saw that the regiment did not know you had gone
and were not following. And my brother said, for God's sake,
follow the colonel, and as he rose, the bullet went
through his head. In reference to mister Bonsal's account of
the Guassamus fight, mister Richard Harding Davis writes me as follows,
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we had already halted several times times to give the
men a chance to rest. And when we halted for
the last time, I thought it was for this same purpose,
and began taking photographs of the men of L Troop,
who were so near that they asked me to be
sure and save them a photograph. Would had twice disappeared
down the trail beyond them. In return, as he came
back for the second time, I remember that you walked
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up to him. We were all dismounted then and saluted
and said Colonel doctor Lamott reports at the pace is
too fast for the men, and that over fifty have
fallen out from exhaustion. Would we pried sharply, I have
no time to bother with sick men, now, you replied
more in answer, I suppose to his tone than to
his words. I merely repeated what the surgeon reported to me.
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Would then turn and set an explanation. I have no
time for them now. I mean that we are in
sight of the enemy. This was the only information we
received that the men of the L Troop had been
ambushed by the Spaniards, and if they were, they were
very calm about it, And I certainly was taking photographs
of them at the time, and the rest of the regiment,
instead of being half an hour's march away, was seated
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comfortably along the trail, not twenty feet distant from the
men of L Troop. You deployed G Troop under Captain
Llewellyn into the jungle at the right and sent K
Troop after it, and Wood ordered Troops E and F
into the field on our left. It must have been
from ten to fifteen minutes after Capron and Wood had
located the Spaniards before either side fired a shot. When
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the firing did come, I went over to you and
joined G Troop in a detachment of K Troop under
Woodbury Kane, and we located more of the enemy on
a ridge. If it is to be ambush, when you
find the enemy exactly where you want to find him,
and your scouts see him sooner enough to give you
sufficient time to spread five troops in skirmish order to
attack him, and you then drive him back out of
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three positions for a mile and a half, then most certainly,
as Bonzel says, L Troop of the rough Riders was
ambushed by the Spaniards on the morning of June twenty fourth.
General Wood also writes me at length about mister Bomber's book,
stating that his account of the Glossamus fight is without foundation.
In fact, he says, we had five troops completely deployed
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before the first shot was fired. Captain Capron was not
wounded until the fight had been going on fully thirty
five minutes. The statement that Captain Capron's troop was ambush
is absolutely untrue. We have been informed, as you know,
by Castill's people, that we should find the dead guerrilla
a few hundred yards on the Siboney side of the
Spanish lines. He then alludes to the waving of the
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guide on by K troop as the only means of
communication with the regulars. He mentions that his orders did
not come from General Wheeler and that he had no
instructions from General Wheeler directly or indirectly at any time
previous to the fight. General Wood does not think that
I give quite enough credit to the rough riders as
compared to the regulars in this Glossamists fight, and believes
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that I greatly underestimate the Spanish force and loss, and
that Lieutenant de Guerrero is not to be trusted. At
all these points. He states that we began the fight
ten minutes before the regulars, and that the main attack
was made and decided by us. This was the view
that I and all the rest of us in the
regiment took at the time. But as I have found
out since that the members of the first and tenth
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regular regiments held with equal sincerity the view that the
main part was taken by their own commands, I have
come to the conclusion that the way I have described
the action is substantially correct, owing to the fact that
the tenth Cavalry, which was originally in support, moved forward
until it got mixed with the first. It is very
difficult to get the exact relative position of the different
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troops of the First and tenth in making the advance.
Beck and Galbrith were on the left. Apparently Wainwright was
farthest over on the right. General Woods states that Leonardo Ross,
the civil governor of Santiago at the time of the surrender,
told him that the Spanish force at Guasimas consisted of
not less than two thy six hundred men, and that
there were nearly three hundred them killed and wounded. I
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did not myself see how it was possible for us,
as we were the attack party and were advancing against
superior numbers. Well sheltered to inflict five times as much
damage as we received. But as we buried eleven dead Spaniards,
and as they carried off some of their dead, I
believe the loss to have been very much heavier than
Lieutenant to Gerro reports. General Wood believes that in following
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Lieutenant to Gerro, I have greatly underestimated the number of
Spanish troops who were defending Santiago on July first, And
here I think he completely makes out his case. He
taken the view that Lieutenant to Gerald's statements were made
for the purpose of saving Spanish honor. On this point,
his letter runs as follows a word in regard to
the number of troops in Santiago, I have had during
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my long association here a good many opportunities to get
information which you have not got and probably never will get.
That is, information from parties who were actually in the fight,
who are now residents of the city. Also information which
came to me as commanding officer of the city directly
after the surrender, who sum up briefly as follows, the
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Spanish surrendered in San Diego twelve thousand men we ship
from Santiago something over fourteen thousand men. The two thousand
additional were troops that came in from Saint Louis, Sago
and small up country posts. The twelve thousand in the
city minus the force of General Scario three thousand, three
hundred infantry and six hundred eighty cavalry, or in round numbers,
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four thousand men who entered the city just after the
battles of San Juan and El Caney, leaves eight thousand
regulars plus the dead, plus Chiva's marines and Blue Jackets,
which he himself admits landing in the neighborhood of one thousand,
two hundred and Reports here are that he landed one thousand,
three hundred eighty and plus the Spanish volunteer battalion, which
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was between eight hundred and nine hundred men. This statement
I have from the Lieutenant colonel of this very battalion
gives us, in round numbers, present for duty on the
morning of July first, not less than ten thousand, five
hundred men. These men were distributed eight hundred ninety at
cany two companies of artillery at Morrow, one at Socopa,
and a half a company at point to Gorda in
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all not over five hundred or six hundred men, but
for the sake of argument, we can say a thousand
in round numbers. Then we had immediately about the city
eighty five hundred troops. These were scattered from the cemetery
around to Aguadoras in front of us, actually in the trenches.
There could not, by any possible method of figuring, have
been less than six thousand men. You can twist it
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any way you want to. The figures I have given
you are absolutely correct. At least they are absolutely on
the side of safety. It is difficult for me to
withstand a temptation to tell what has befallen some of
my men since the regiment disbanded. Hol McGuinty, after spending
some week in Roosevelt Hospital in New York, was an
attack of fever. Determined to call upon his captain Woodbury
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Kane when he got out, and, procuring a horse, rode
until he found Kaine's house, when he hitched the horse
to a lamppost and strolled in. How Cherokee Bill married
a wife and Hoboken, and as that pleasant city ultimately
proved an uncongenial feel for his activities. How I had
to send both himself and his wife out to the territory.
How happy Jack, haunted by visions of the social methods
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obtaining in the best saloons of Arizona, applied for the
position a bouncer out at the Executive Chamber when I
was elected governor, And how I got him a job
at railroading instead, and finally had the ship him back
to his own territory. Also how a valued friend from
a cow ranch in the remote West accepted a pressing
invitation to spend a few days at the home of
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another ex trooper, a New Yorker of fastidious instincts, and
arrived with an umbrella as his only baggage. How poor
Halderman and Pollock both died and were buried with military honors,
all of Pollock's tribesmen coming to the burial. How Tom
isbel joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. And how on
the other hand, George Rollins scornfully refused to remain in
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the East at all, writing to a gallant young New
Yorker who had been his bunkie. Well, oh boy, I'm
glad I didn't go home with you for them people
to look at, because I ain't a buffalo or a
rhinoceros or a giraffe. And I don't like to be
stared at. And you know we didn't do no hard
fighting down there. I have been in closer places than
that right here in the United States. That is, better
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men to fight than them damn Spaniards. In another letter,
Rolin tells of the fate of Tom Darnell, the writer,
he who rode the sorel horse of the third Cavalry.
There ain't much news to write of except poor old
Tom Darnell got killed about a month ago. Tom and
another fellow had a fight, and he shot Tom through
the heart, and Tom was dead when he hit the floor.
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Tom was sure a good old boy, and I sure
hated to hear of him going. And he had plenty
of grit too. No man ever calling him for a
fight that he didn't get it. My men were children
of the dragon's blood, and if they had no outland
foe to fight, and no outlet for their vigorous and
daring energy, there was always the chance of their fighting
one another. But the great majority, if given the chance
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to do hard or dangerous work, availed themselves of it
with the utmost eagerness, and though fevers sickened and weakened them,
so that many died from it during the few months
following their return. Yet as a whole they are now
doing fairly well. A few have shot other men or
been shot themselves. A few ran for office and got elected,
like Llewellyn and Luna in New Mexico, or defeated, like
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Brody and Wilcox in Arizona. Some have been trying hard
to get to the Philippines. Some have returned to college,
or to law, or the factory or the counting room.
Most of them have gone back to the mine, the ranch,
and the hunting cap. And the great majority have taken
up the threads of their lives where they dropped them
when the Maine was blown up and the country called
their arms. And of Appendix stee and of the Rough
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Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
Section sixteen of the Rough Writers by Theodore Roosevelt. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by William
Peck Appendix D corrections. It has been suggested to me
that when Bucky O'Neill spoke of the vultures tearing our dead,
he was thinking of no modern poet, but of the
(00:21):
words of the prophet Ezekiel. Speak, until every feathered fowl,
ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink
the blood of the princes of the earth. At San Juan,
the sixth Cavalry was under Major Leebol, a triede and
gallant officer. I learned from a letter of Lieutenant Macnamie
that it was he, and not Lieutenant Hartwick, by whose
(00:43):
orders the troopers of the ninth cast down the fence
to enable me to ride my horse into the lane.
But one of the two lieutenants of b troop was
overcome by the heat that day. Lieutenant Rining was with
his troop until dark one night during the siege, when
when we were digging trenches, a curious stampede occurred, not
(01:03):
in my own regiment, which it may be necessary some
time to relate. Lieutenants W. E. Ship and W. H.
Smith were killed not far from each other while gallantly
leading their troops on the slope of Kettle Hill. Each
left a widow and young children. Captain now Colonel A. L. Mills,
the brigade Adjutant General, has written me some comments on
(01:26):
my account of the fight. On July first. It was
he himself who first brought me word to advance. I
then met Colonel Dorris, who bore the same message. As
I was getting the regiment forward. Captain Mills was one
of the officers I had sent back to get orders
that would permit me to advance. He met General Sunder
who gave him the orders, and he then returned to me.
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In a letter to me, Colonel Mills says, in part,
I reached the head of the regiment as you came
out of the lane and gave you the orders to
enter the action. These were that you were to move
with your right resting along the wire fence of the
lane to the support of the regular cavalry, then attacking
the hill. We were facing the red roof house. Yonder
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is your objective? I said to you. You moved out
at once and quickly forged to the front of your regiment.
I rode in the rear, keeping the soldiers and troops
closed and in line. As well as the circumstances and
conditions permitted. We had covered I judge from one half
to two thirds to distance to Kettle Hill, when Lieutenant
Colonel Garlington, from our left flank called to me that
(02:32):
troops were kneaded in the meadow across the lane. I
put one troop, not three, as stated in your account,
across the lane and went with it. Advancing with the troop,
I began immediately to pick up troopers of the ninth
Cavalry who had drifted from their commands, and soon had
so many they demanded nearly all my attention. With a
line thus made up the coward troopers on the left
(02:55):
and yours on the right. The portion of Kettle Hill
on the right of the red roof house was first carried.
I very shortly thereafter had a strong firing line established
on the crest nearest the enemy, from the corner of
the fence around the house to the low ground on
the right of the hill, which fired into the strong
line of conical straw hats, whose brims showed just above
(03:15):
the edge of the Spanish trench directly west of that
part of the hill. These hats made a fine target.
I have placed a young officer of your regiment in
charge of the portion of the line on top of
the hill, and was about to go to the left
to keep the connection of the brigade kept. The mcblain
ninth Cavalry just came up on the hill from the
left and rear when the shots struck. That put me
(03:37):
out of the fight. There were many holy erroneous accounts
of the Guassimas fight published at the time, for the
most part written by newspaper men who were in the
rear and utterly ignorant of what really occurred. Most of
these accounts possessed a value so purely ephemero as to
need no notice. Mister Stephen Bonzo, however, in his book
(03:58):
The Fight for Santiago, cast one of them in a
more permanent form, and I shall discuss one or two
of his statements. Mister Bonzo was not present at the fight,
and indeed, so far as I know, he never at
any time was with the cavalry in action. He puts
in his book a map of the supposed skirmish ground,
but it bears to the actual scene of the fight,
(04:19):
only the well known likeness borne by Mammoth t Massidon.
There was a brook on the battleground, and there is
a brook in mister Bonzil's map. The real brook, flowing
down from the mountains, crossed the valley road and ran
down between it and the hill trail, going nowhere near
the ladder. The Bonzo Brook flows at right angles to
the course of the real brook and crosses both trails.
(04:41):
That is, it runs uphill. It is difficult to believe
that the Bonzel map could have been made by any
man who had gone over the hill trail followed by
the rough riders, and who knew where the fighting had
taken place. The position of the Spanish line on the
Bonzel map is inverted compared to what it really was
on page ninety. Mister Bonzol says that in making the
(05:04):
precipitate advance, there was a rivalry between the regulars and
rough riders, which resulted in each hurrying recklessly forward to
strike the Spaniards first. On the contrary, the official reports
showed that General Young's column waited for some time after
it got to the Spanish position, so as to allow
the rough riders who had the more difficult trail to
(05:26):
come up. Colonel Wood kept his column walking at a
smart pace, merely so that the regulars might not be
left unsupported when the fight began, and as a matter
of fact, it began almost simultaneously on both wings. On
page ninety one, mister Bonzol speaks of the full, hearty
formation of a solid column along a narrow trail, which
(05:48):
brought them the rough Riders within point blank range of
the Spanish rifles and within the unobstructed sweep of their
machine guns. He also speaks as if the advance should
have been made with the regiment deployed through the jungle.
Of course, the only possible way by which the rough
Riders could have been brought into action and time to
support the regulars was by advancing in calm along the
(06:09):
trail at a good smart gate. As soon as our
advance guard came into contact with the enemy's outposts, we deployed.
No firing began for at least five minutes after Captain
Capron sent back word that he had come upon the
Spanish outpost. At the particular point where this occurred, there
was a dip in the road which probably rendered it
in Capron's opinion better to keep part of his men
(06:31):
in it. In any event, Captain Capron, who was as
skillful as he was gallant, had ample time between discovering
the Spanish outposts and the outbreak of the firing to
arrange his troops in the formation he deemed best. His
troop was not in solid formation. His men were about
ten yards apart. Of course. To have walked forward deployed
through the jungle prior to reaching the ground where we
(06:54):
were to fight would have, been, of course, a procedure
so foolish as to warrant the summary court martial of
any man directing it. We could not have made half
a mile an hour in such a formation, and would
have been at least four hours too late for the fighting.
On page ninety two, mister Bonzol says that Captain Capron's
troop was ambushed and that it received the enemy's fire
(07:15):
a quarter of an hour before it was expected. This
is simply not so. Before the column stopped, we had
passed the dead Cuban killed in the preceding days skirmish,
and General Wood had notified me, on information he had
received from Capron, that we might come into contact with
the Spaniards at any moment, and as I have already said,
Captain Capron discovered the Spanish outpost, and we halted and
(07:38):
partially deployed the column before the firing began. We were,
at the time exactly where we had expected to come
across the Spaniards, Mister Bonzol, after speaking of L Troop ads,
the remaining troops of the regiment had traveled more leisurely
and more than half an hour elapsed before they came
up to Capron support. As a matter of fact, all
(07:59):
the troops travel at exactly the same rate of speed,
although there were stragglers from each and when k Pron
halted and sent back word that he had come upon
the Spanish outposts, the entire regiment closed up, halted, and
most of the men sat down. We then, some minutes
after the first word had been received, and before any
firing had begun, received instructions to deploy. I had my
(08:20):
right wing partially deployed before the first shots between the
outputs took place. Within less than three minutes, I had
G Troop with Llewewyn Greenway and Leahy, and one platoon
of K Troop under Kine on the firing line, and
it was not until after we reached the firing line
that the heavy volley firing from the Spaniards began. On
(08:43):
page ninety four, mister Bozo says a fixatious delay occurred
before the two independent columns could communicate and advance with
concerted action. When the two columns were brought into communication,
it was immediately decided to make a general attack upon
the Spanish position. With this purpose in view, the following
disposition of the troops was made before the advance of
(09:05):
the brigade all along the line was ordered. There was
no communication between the two columns prior to the general attack,
nor was any order issued for the advance of the
brigade all along the line. The attacks were made wholly independently,
and the first communication between the calms was when the
right wing of the rough Riders, in the course of
their advance by their firing, dislodged Expandards from the hill
(09:28):
across the ravine to the right, and then saw the
Regulars come up that hill. Mister Bonzel's account of what
occurred among the Regulars parallels his account of what occurred
among the rough Riders. He states that the squadron of
the tenth Cavalry delivered the main attack upon the hill,
which was the strongest point of the Spanish position, and
he says of the troopers of the tenth Cavalry that
(09:50):
their better training enabled them to render more valuable service
than the other troops engaged. In reality, the tenth cavalrymen
were deployed in support of the First, though they mingle
with them in the assault proper, and so far as
there was any difference at all in the amount of
work done, it was in favor of the First. The
statement that the tenth Cavalry was better trained in the
(10:10):
first and rendered more valuable service as not the slightest
basis whatsoever of any kind sort or description. In fact,
the tenth Cavalry did well what it was required to
do as an organization in this fight. It was rather
less heavily engaged and suffered less loss actually and relatively
than either the First Cavalry or the rough Riders. It
(10:32):
took about the same part that was taken by the
left wing of the rough Riders, which wing was similarly
rather less heavily engaged than the right and center of
the regiment. Of course, this is a reflection neither on
the tenth Cavalry nor on the left wing of the
rough Riders. Each body simply did what it was ordered
to do, and did it well. But the claim that
the tenth Cavalry did better than the first or bore
(10:54):
the most prominent part in the fight is like making
the same claim for the left wing of the rough Riders.
All the troops engaged did well, and all alike are
entitled to share in the honor of the day. Mister
Bonzel out Spaniards the Spaniards themselves as regards both their
numbers and their loss. These points are discussed elsewhere. He
(11:16):
develops for the Spanish side to account for their retreat
a wholly new explanation, viz. That they retreated because they
saw reinforcements arriving for the Americans. The Spaniards themselves make
no such claim. Lieutenant de Guerro asserts that they retreated
because news had come of a wholly mythical American advance
on Moral Castle. The Spanish official report simply says that
(11:39):
the Americans were repulsed, which is about as accurate a
statement as the other two. All three explanations those by
General Rubin, by Lieutenant to Jerrol and by mister Bonzel alike,
are precisely on a par with the first Spanish official
report of the Battle of Manila Bay, in which Admiral
Dewey was described as having been repulsed and forced to retire.
(12:00):
There are one or two minor mistakes made by mister Bonzel.
He states that on the roster of the officers of
the rough Riders there were ten west Pointers. There were three,
one of whom resigned. Only two were in the fighting.
He also states that after Las squassimas brigadier General Young
was made a major general and Colonel Wood a brigadier general,
while the commanding officers of the first and tenth Cavalry
(12:23):
were ignored in this shower of promotions. In the first place,
the commanding officers of the first and tenth Cavalry were
not in the fight, only one squadron of each having
been present. In the next place, there was no shower
of promotions at all. Nobody was promoted except General Young,
saved to fill the vacancies caused by death or by
(12:43):
promotion of General Young. Wood was not promoted because of
this fight. General Young most deservedly was promoted soon after
the fight. He fell sick. The command of the brigade
then fell upon Wood, simply because he had higher rank
than the other two regimental commanders of the brigade, and
I then took command of the regiment, exactly as Lieutenant
colonel's Veil and Baldwin had already taken command of the
(13:05):
first and tenth Cavalry when their superior officers were put
in charge of brigades. After the San Juan fighting, in
which Wood commanded a brigade, he was made a brigadier general,
and I was then promoted to the nominal command of
the regiment, which I was already commanding. In reality, mister
Bonzell's claim a superior efficiency for the Coward regular regiments
(13:26):
as compared with the White regular regiments does not merit discussion.
He asserts that General Wheeler bought on the Glossimus fight
in defiance of orders Lieutenant Miley, and his book in
Cuba with Shafter on page eighty three shows that General
Wheeler made his fight before receiving the order which it
is claimed he disobeyed. General Wheeler was in command Ashore.
(13:47):
He was told to get in touch with the enemy,
and being a man with the fighting edge, this meant
that he was certain to fight. No general who was
worth his salt would have failed to fight under such conditions.
The only question would be as to how to fight
was to be made. War means fighting, and the soldier's
cardinal sin is timidity. General Wheeler remained throughout Steadfest against
(14:10):
any retreat from before Santiago, But the merit of keeping
the army before Santiago without withdrawal until the city fell
belongs to the authorities at Washington, who, at this all
important stage of the operations showed to mark the advantage
in overruling the proposals made by the highest generals in
the field looking towards partial retreat or toward the abandonment
(14:33):
of the effort to take the city. The following note,
written by Sergeant E. G. Norton of B Troop, refers
to the death of his brother, Oliver B. Norton, one
of the most gallant and soldierly men in the regiment,
on July first, I, together with Sergeant Campbell and Troopers
Bardshard and Dudley Dean, and my brother who was killed
(14:53):
and some others, was at the front of the calm
right behind you. We move forward, following you as you
rode to where we came upon the troopers of the
ninth Cavalry and a part of the first lying down.
I heard the conversation between you and one of the
two of the officers of the ninth Cavalry. You ordered
a charge, and the regular officers answered that they had
(15:14):
no orders to move ahead. Whereupon you said, then let
us through and march forward through the lines our regiment falling.
The men of the ninth and first Cavalry then jumped
up and came forward with us. Then you waved your
hat and gave the command to charge, and we went
up the hill on the top of Kettle Hill. My brother, however,
be Norton, was shot through the head and in the
(15:36):
right wrist. It was just as you started to lead
the charge. In San Juan Hills ahead of us. We
saw that the regiment did not know you had gone
and were not following. And my brother said, for God's sake,
follow the colonel, and as he rose, the bullet went
through his head. In reference to mister Bonsal's account of
the Guassamus fight, mister Richard Harding Davis writes me as follows,
(15:58):
we had already halted several times times to give the
men a chance to rest. And when we halted for
the last time, I thought it was for this same purpose,
and began taking photographs of the men of L Troop,
who were so near that they asked me to be
sure and save them a photograph. Would had twice disappeared
down the trail beyond them. In return, as he came
back for the second time, I remember that you walked
(16:19):
up to him. We were all dismounted then and saluted
and said Colonel doctor Lamott reports at the pace is
too fast for the men, and that over fifty have
fallen out from exhaustion. Would we pried sharply, I have
no time to bother with sick men, now, you replied
more in answer, I suppose to his tone than to
his words. I merely repeated what the surgeon reported to me.
(16:42):
Would then turn and set an explanation. I have no
time for them now. I mean that we are in
sight of the enemy. This was the only information we
received that the men of the L Troop had been
ambushed by the Spaniards, and if they were, they were
very calm about it, And I certainly was taking photographs
of them at the time, and the rest of the regiment,
instead of being half an hour's march away, was seated
(17:04):
comfortably along the trail, not twenty feet distant from the
men of L Troop. You deployed G Troop under Captain
Llewellyn into the jungle at the right and sent K
Troop after it, and Wood ordered Troops E and F
into the field on our left. It must have been
from ten to fifteen minutes after Capron and Wood had
located the Spaniards before either side fired a shot. When
(17:26):
the firing did come, I went over to you and
joined G Troop in a detachment of K Troop under
Woodbury Kane, and we located more of the enemy on
a ridge. If it is to be ambush, when you
find the enemy exactly where you want to find him,
and your scouts see him sooner enough to give you
sufficient time to spread five troops in skirmish order to
attack him, and you then drive him back out of
(17:47):
three positions for a mile and a half, then most certainly,
as Bonzel says, L Troop of the rough Riders was
ambushed by the Spaniards on the morning of June twenty fourth.
General Wood also writes me at length about mister Bomber's book,
stating that his account of the Glossamus fight is without foundation.
In fact, he says, we had five troops completely deployed
(18:07):
before the first shot was fired. Captain Capron was not
wounded until the fight had been going on fully thirty
five minutes. The statement that Captain Capron's troop was ambush
is absolutely untrue. We have been informed, as you know,
by Castill's people, that we should find the dead guerrilla
a few hundred yards on the Siboney side of the
Spanish lines. He then alludes to the waving of the
(18:30):
guide on by K troop as the only means of
communication with the regulars. He mentions that his orders did
not come from General Wheeler and that he had no
instructions from General Wheeler directly or indirectly at any time
previous to the fight. General Wood does not think that
I give quite enough credit to the rough riders as
compared to the regulars in this Glossamists fight, and believes
(18:51):
that I greatly underestimate the Spanish force and loss, and
that Lieutenant de Guerrero is not to be trusted. At
all these points. He states that we began the fight
ten minutes before the regulars, and that the main attack
was made and decided by us. This was the view
that I and all the rest of us in the
regiment took at the time. But as I have found
out since that the members of the first and tenth
(19:12):
regular regiments held with equal sincerity the view that the
main part was taken by their own commands, I have
come to the conclusion that the way I have described
the action is substantially correct, owing to the fact that
the tenth Cavalry, which was originally in support, moved forward
until it got mixed with the first. It is very
difficult to get the exact relative position of the different
(19:33):
troops of the First and tenth in making the advance.
Beck and Galbrith were on the left. Apparently Wainwright was
farthest over on the right. General Woods states that Leonardo Ross,
the civil governor of Santiago at the time of the surrender,
told him that the Spanish force at Guasimas consisted of
not less than two thy six hundred men, and that
there were nearly three hundred them killed and wounded. I
(19:56):
did not myself see how it was possible for us,
as we were the attack party and were advancing against
superior numbers. Well sheltered to inflict five times as much
damage as we received. But as we buried eleven dead Spaniards,
and as they carried off some of their dead, I
believe the loss to have been very much heavier than
Lieutenant to Gerro reports. General Wood believes that in following
(20:17):
Lieutenant to Gerro, I have greatly underestimated the number of
Spanish troops who were defending Santiago on July first, And
here I think he completely makes out his case. He
taken the view that Lieutenant to Gerald's statements were made
for the purpose of saving Spanish honor. On this point,
his letter runs as follows a word in regard to
the number of troops in Santiago, I have had during
(20:39):
my long association here a good many opportunities to get
information which you have not got and probably never will get.
That is, information from parties who were actually in the fight,
who are now residents of the city. Also information which
came to me as commanding officer of the city directly
after the surrender, who sum up briefly as follows, the
(21:00):
Spanish surrendered in San Diego twelve thousand men we ship
from Santiago something over fourteen thousand men. The two thousand
additional were troops that came in from Saint Louis, Sago
and small up country posts. The twelve thousand in the
city minus the force of General Scario three thousand, three
hundred infantry and six hundred eighty cavalry, or in round numbers,
(21:21):
four thousand men who entered the city just after the
battles of San Juan and El Caney, leaves eight thousand
regulars plus the dead, plus Chiva's marines and Blue Jackets,
which he himself admits landing in the neighborhood of one thousand,
two hundred and Reports here are that he landed one thousand,
three hundred eighty and plus the Spanish volunteer battalion, which
(21:42):
was between eight hundred and nine hundred men. This statement
I have from the Lieutenant colonel of this very battalion
gives us, in round numbers, present for duty on the
morning of July first, not less than ten thousand, five
hundred men. These men were distributed eight hundred ninety at
cany two companies of artillery at Morrow, one at Socopa,
and a half a company at point to Gorda in
(22:03):
all not over five hundred or six hundred men, but
for the sake of argument, we can say a thousand
in round numbers. Then we had immediately about the city
eighty five hundred troops. These were scattered from the cemetery
around to Aguadoras in front of us, actually in the trenches.
There could not, by any possible method of figuring, have
been less than six thousand men. You can twist it
(22:26):
any way you want to. The figures I have given
you are absolutely correct. At least they are absolutely on
the side of safety. It is difficult for me to
withstand a temptation to tell what has befallen some of
my men since the regiment disbanded. Hol McGuinty, after spending
some week in Roosevelt Hospital in New York, was an
attack of fever. Determined to call upon his captain Woodbury
(22:48):
Kane when he got out, and, procuring a horse, rode
until he found Kaine's house, when he hitched the horse
to a lamppost and strolled in. How Cherokee Bill married
a wife and Hoboken, and as that pleasant city ultimately
proved an uncongenial feel for his activities. How I had
to send both himself and his wife out to the territory.
How happy Jack, haunted by visions of the social methods
(23:09):
obtaining in the best saloons of Arizona, applied for the
position a bouncer out at the Executive Chamber when I
was elected governor, And how I got him a job
at railroading instead, and finally had the ship him back
to his own territory. Also how a valued friend from
a cow ranch in the remote West accepted a pressing
invitation to spend a few days at the home of
(23:30):
another ex trooper, a New Yorker of fastidious instincts, and
arrived with an umbrella as his only baggage. How poor
Halderman and Pollock both died and were buried with military honors,
all of Pollock's tribesmen coming to the burial. How Tom
isbel joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. And how on
the other hand, George Rollins scornfully refused to remain in
(23:51):
the East at all, writing to a gallant young New
Yorker who had been his bunkie. Well, oh boy, I'm
glad I didn't go home with you for them people
to look at, because I ain't a buffalo or a
rhinoceros or a giraffe. And I don't like to be
stared at. And you know we didn't do no hard
fighting down there. I have been in closer places than
that right here in the United States. That is, better
(24:12):
men to fight than them damn Spaniards. In another letter,
Rolin tells of the fate of Tom Darnell, the writer,
he who rode the sorel horse of the third Cavalry.
There ain't much news to write of except poor old
Tom Darnell got killed about a month ago. Tom and
another fellow had a fight, and he shot Tom through
the heart, and Tom was dead when he hit the floor.
(24:32):
Tom was sure a good old boy, and I sure
hated to hear of him going. And he had plenty
of grit too. No man ever calling him for a
fight that he didn't get it. My men were children
of the dragon's blood, and if they had no outland
foe to fight, and no outlet for their vigorous and
daring energy, there was always the chance of their fighting
one another. But the great majority, if given the chance
(24:53):
to do hard or dangerous work, availed themselves of it
with the utmost eagerness, and though fevers sickened and weakened them,
so that many died from it during the few months
following their return. Yet as a whole they are now
doing fairly well. A few have shot other men or
been shot themselves. A few ran for office and got elected,
like Llewellyn and Luna in New Mexico, or defeated, like
(25:15):
Brody and Wilcox in Arizona. Some have been trying hard
to get to the Philippines. Some have returned to college,
or to law, or the factory or the counting room.
Most of them have gone back to the mine, the ranch,
and the hunting cap. And the great majority have taken
up the threads of their lives where they dropped them
when the Maine was blown up and the country called
their arms. And of Appendix stee and of the Rough
(25:42):
Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
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