The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (52 page)

Grinnell and Roosevelt agreed on the precepts of conservation for the West: repopulating it with the buffalo and the elk, saving its natural wonders, and helping Native Americans there reconstitute their heritage. Two days before Christmas 1897, Roosevelt wrote to John A. Merritt, the third assistant postmaster general in the McKinley administration. All those holiday stamps he had licked for Christmas cards had given him an idea. Why not promote the West by issuing new stamps? When Merritt replied asking for specific recommendations, Roosevelt suggested a Cheyenne warrior with a bonnet of eagle feathers, a prairie schooner, a Remington cowboy illustration, and (if a real person could be used) an image of Kit Carson—Roosevelt always promoted Carson at every chance possible. Those were fairly safe choices. But, Roosevelt wrote, if the U.S. Post Office was truly interested in presenting the American West in a stamp series, it should focus on the region’s wildlife and wondrous natural sites. “By all means have one of those postage stamps with a buffalo on it,” Roosevelt instructed. “The vanished buffalo is typical of almost all the old-time life on the plains, the life of the wild chase, wild warfare, and wild pioneering. If any bit of scenery were taken I should suggest your going up to the Cosmos Club or to the Geological Survey and examine three or four of their photographs of the boldest [Arizona] canyon walls, or of Pike’s Peak.”
⁹²

I

S
tarting in January 1897 William Randolph Hearst’s
New York Journal
and Joseph Pulitzer’s
New York World
began reporting zealously on the Cuban insurrection against Spain. Up until then the U.S. Senate was for Cuban independence, but back burnered the issue. There was little clamor to send the American navy into a firefight. Still, through these jingoistic newspapers, the public was made aware of such heinous acts as a Spanish firing squad executing the Cuban revolutionary Adolfo Rodriguez and the horrific conditions of prisons in Havana. Public sympathy in America was turning against the ogre, Spain. Besides the Cuban insurrection, the Spanish authorities were also trying to squelch the Philippine liberation movement (the Philippine Islands were then a Spanish colony). Hatred for all things Spanish became widespread in the United States, fueled by—in large part—the Hearst and Pulitzer papers.

Influenced by this so-called yellow journalism, Roosevelt had no trouble actively disdaining Spaniards in 1897. To Roosevelt the Spanish government exuded a conceited authoritarianism that he despised. He believed that the United States had an obligation to challenge
any
brutal European monarchy that was thumbing its nose at the Monroe Doctrine. Disregarding the fact that American sugar tariffs enacted in 1894 had disrupted the Cuban economy, Roosevelt blamed Spain for Cuba’s impoverished living conditions. He was glad, if anything, that the tariff had helped set the Cubans against Spanish rule.

Roosevelt, as a Mahanian naval strategist, had serious concerns about Spain. In particular, he had carefully read “War with Spain—1896,” a national security document written by an astute naval intelligence officer, Lieutenant William Wirt Kimball for the Naval War College. Roosevelt thought Kimball’s analysis was spot-on. He had even written to Mahan that the “Kimball Plan” avoided the politics of imperialism versus anti-imperialism altogether. It was a blueprint for war preparedness. Kimball insisted that if war with Spain occurred, a naval engagement would be preferable to a land war in Cuba and the Philippines. This made great sense to Roosevelt. Boiled down, the Kimball Plan called for an offensive strike against Madrid in three war zones: the Philippines, Cuba, and on
the high seas against Spanish shipping. The crucial strategic point was for the United States to cleverly draw the Spanish navy into protecting the far-flung Philippines, leaving Cuba wide open to a U.S. invasion. What Roosevelt as a naval historian most deeply admired about the Kimball Plan was its specificity: every Spanish ship was described and analyzed in minute detail. In many ways the document stylistically resembled his own
Naval War of 1812
. If war came T.R. wanted the U.S. Navy prepared for all the challenges the Kimball Plan presented. He wrote to Kimball, “The war will have to, or at least ought to, come sooner than later.”
¹

Around Christmas 1897 Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt became obsessed by the idea of war with Spain. He worried that if the United States didn’t confront Spain in the Western Hemisphere than there would be “disastrous long term consequences for future American security.”
²
Overflowing with patriotic spirit, Roosevelt believed that fighting for the independence of Cuba and the Philippines was both a noble cause and a strategic imperative. Spain’s ambitions had to be thwarted. There were echoes in Roosevelt’s thinking of 1886, when he had promoted armed conflict with Mexico, and of 1891, when he had fantasized about shooting “dagos” in Chile.
³
Although he found time to scold Frederic Remington for having drawn badgers improperly in an illustration in
Harper’s Weekly
and continued reading up on the Olympic Mountains, for the most part Roosevelt was consumed that holiday season with promoting an imperialistic pamphlet of quotations he’d assembled under the title
Naval Policy of the Presidents
.
⁴
He also corresponded with Commodore George Dewey (whose fleet was maneuvering in the Pacific) and impetuously directed the North Atlantic Squadron to join the U.S.S.
Maine
at Key West, Florida, to immediately begin winter exercises.
⁵

On January 25, 1898, the
Maine
dropped anchor in Havana harbor in what was essentially an exercise in showing the flag.
⁶
America was inching closer to war with Spain. When on February 15 the
Maine
exploded in a fireball, killing 262 U.S. sailors, Roosevelt’s war fervor increased. He blamed Spain for the explosion. While President McKinley ordered a report to find out whether the
Maine
had been sabotaged by Spain or whether a short-circuit fire had blown up the gunpowder kegs, Roosevelt grew impatient. Believing that the U.S. Navy was in a perfect state of readiness, the best it had been since the Civil War, he wanted the Spanish forts in Cuba reduced to burned wood and rubble. All-out war against Spain, he believed, should be declared at once. “Cuban independence,” no longer a remote concept, had become Roosevelt’s new rallying cry and his
response to those who advocated peace at any price. “Personally I cannot understand how the bulk of our people can tolerate the hideous infamy that has attended the last two years of Spanish rule in Cuba,” Roosevelt wrote to William Sheffield Cowles, “and still more how they can tolerate the treacherous destruction of the
Maine
and the murder of our men!”
⁷

Pledging to go and fight in Cuba himself—even though he was nearing forty and had six children to help raise—Roosevelt famously declared that the cautious President McKinley had “no more backbone than a chocolate éclair.”
⁸
Warring with his own administration, Roosevelt said that come hell or high water he was going to fight on the front lines in Cuba or Puerto Rico (or even the Philippines if need be). He wrote to Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, a Bostonian physician with a world-class collection of Japanese art, on March 29, 1898, “A man’s usefulness demands on living up to his ideals in so far as he can. Now, I have consistently preached what our opponents are pleased to call ‘jingo doctrines’ for a good many years. One of the commonest taunts directed at men like myself is that we are armchair and parlor jingoes who wish to see others do what we only advocate doing. I care very little for such a taunt, except as it affects my usefulness, but I cannot afford to disregard the fact that my power for good, whatever it may be, would be gone if I didn’t try to live up to the doctrines I have tried to preach.”
⁹

Less than two weeks later, President McKinley reluctantly asked Congress for a declaration to interfere in Cuban affairs. Roosevelt was all for the declaration but emphatically against the annexation of Cuba, unless Havana wanted it.
¹⁰
Congress became engulfed in a heated debate. Was war the right choice? Should America defend its honor in Cuba? These questions became academic when, on April 23, Spain declared war on the United States. President McKinley called for three regiments of volunteers to supplement the depleted army. Then on May Day, out of the clear blue sky, astounding news arrived. The previous day Commander Dewey—known for his fearless firefights along the Mississippi River as a Union naval lieutenant during the Civil War under Admiral David Farragut’s command—had crushed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, without losing a single U.S. sailor in battle. A few days later, on May 6, Roosevelt simply resigned as assistant secretary so he could implement the Kimball Plan, defend the Monroe Doctrine, and revenge the
Maine
. In quick order he received an army commission, purchased an appropriate outfit at Brooks Brothers, and departed for drill training in San Antonio, Texas. Nobody in official Washington could believe how childishly he was acting.
Bigelow, who shared with Roosevelt a love of jujitsu,
*
¹¹
wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge, “If T.R. goes, the country will not trust him again.”
¹²
Seconding that opinion was Henry Adams, who asked mutual friends, “Is he quite mad?”
¹³

Roosevelt became so distracted by the prospect of war that for the first time since the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club, he missed its annual dinner that January. The concept of American imperial ambitions consumed Roosevelt to the point of monomania. Pestering everybody he knew who was in a position to help, Roosevelt kept pleading, “Send me.” Picking up the old slogan “Remember the Alamo” from the Mexican War, Roosevelt was one of the progenitors of “Remember the Maine.” Obviously, hunting and bird-watching took a back seat to war that spring. Between trying to take care of Edith, who had undergone surgery to remove abscesses from her hips, and trying to persuade President McKinley to declare war on Spain, he had lost all sense of proportion. “I really think he is going mad,” Winthrop Chanler of the Boone and Crockett Club noted on April 29. “The President has asked him twice as a personal favor to stay in the Navy Department, but Theodore is wild to fight and hack and hew. It really is sad. Of course this ends his political career for good.”
¹⁴

When Secretary of War Russell Alger called for volunteer regiments “to be composed exclusively of frontiersmen possessing special qualifications as horsemen and marksmen,”
¹⁵
Roosevelt leaped at the opportunity. At the very least, his years as deputy sheriff of Billings County, North Dakota, and his stint in the National Guard of New York provided him with legitimate “frontier” credentials. Eventually, Roosevelt was made second in command of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, behind his friend Colonel Leonard Wood, a former Indian fighter who had won the Medal of Honor for pursuing Geronimo and became McKinley’s chief army medical adviser. Because of Roosevelt’s highly publicized enlistment, more than 23,000 applicants flooded into the War Department offices. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to serve with Roosevelt at his side, including some of his Harvard classmates.
¹⁶

With the newspapers cheering Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt on, more than 1,250 men were eventually selected to form a top-notch regiment. They were first called “Teddy’s Texas Tarantulas” and went through three
or four other names until “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders” stuck. The Rough Riders were assigned to San Antonio for their mobilization. The regiment’s encampment was erected on the dusty International Fair Grounds (later renamed Roosevelt Park). The diverse Rough Riders comprised twelve troops—five from New Mexico Territory, three from Arizona Territory, one from Indian Territory (the southeastern part of present-day Oklahoma), one from Oklahoma Territory, and a smattering of upper-crust men from the East Coast, particularly men who had played Ivy League football and soccer. A recruiting table was set up on the outdoor patio of the Menger Hotel where men could register; some gave pseudonyms so not to be held accountable for past crimes. Horses and equipment were supplied from Fort Sam Houston’s quartermaster depot. Livestock men in Stetsons milled about El Mercado Square gossiping with Mexicans about the glorious war. Slouch hats, blue flannel shirts, and bandannas were handed out to Rough Riders as uniforms, giving the regiment a distinctive cowboy look.
¹⁷
Eventually they were all also issued brown canvas stable fatigues for field service and given machetes to help them whack through the tropical foliage of Cuba.

Among Roosevelt’s favorite haunts in San Antonio was the Buckhorn Saloon. Opened for business in 1881 by Albert Friedrich—whose father made high-quality horn furniture—from day one the bar had a standing offer: “Bring in your deer antlers and you can trade them for a shot of whiskey or a beer.” Before long the Buckhorn had the finest collection of horns and trophy mounts in the world. Men would actually collect antlers shed in the Texas Hill Country and then ride into San Antonio for their free drinks. In 1882, in fact, for $100 Friedrich acquired a record-making “78 Point Buck” it was placed behind the bar, where it still remains. Business was so good that Friedrich moved his operation to larger quarters at Houston and Soledad streets, a few blocks from the Alamo. Expanding on the tradition of free alcohol for deer racks, the Buckhorn, by the time Colonel Roosevelt discovered it, was also giving away shots for rattlesnake rattles. (Later, mounted fish from the Seven Seas were included in the freebie deal.) Even though Roosevelt wasn’t much of a drinker, he would wander in with fellow Rough Riders, order a beer, nurse it, and listen to an old guitar-picker sing about being a cowhand along the Brazos River.
¹⁸

San Antonio was a fillip to Roosevelt. He liked being dependent on his own horse and seeing sagebrush. No doctor or pharmacist could have uplifted him better than the opportunity to lead lineal descendents of Andrew Jackson’s fighting force in the Battle of New Orleans. Whether a volunteer was a Fort Worth bronco buster, a Newport polo swell, or
a Tucson shopkeeper, each of the Rough Riders shared traits with the others: they all shot straight, were in good physical condition, hated Spain, and were willing to mobilize quickly. “I suppose about 95 per cent of the men are of native birth,” Roosevelt wrote. “But we have a few from everywhere including a score of Indians, and about as many of Mexican origin from New Mexico.”
¹⁹

Many fine firsthand accounts have been written of Roosevelt’s arrival in San Antonio, colorful portrayals of him pacing around like a bantam rooster in a new fawn uniform with canary-yellow trim, sweat constantly beading on his forehead from the Texas heat. The regiment’s chant soon became, “Rough, tough, we’re the stuff. We want to fight and we can’t get enough.”
²⁰
Throughout San Antonio signs were hung welcoming each state and territory and offering hospitality.
²¹
The Menger Hotel—built twenty-three years after the fall of the Alamo—housed a replica of the pub inside Great Britain’s House of Lords; bartenders used to give out free shots of whiskey, in solidarity with the men. (The hotel later renamed the room the Roosevelt Bar.) However, Colonel Wood upbraided the much younger Roosevelt for purchasing beer kegs for volunteers. “Sir,” Roosevelt apologized when reprimanded, “I consider myself the damndest ass within ten miles of this camp.”
²²