Chapter 18 Guided Reading the Spanish American War Answers
T. R. the Rough Rider: Hero of the Spanish American War
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University
Amongst Theodore Roosevelt's many lifetime accomplishments, few capture the imagination every bit easily as his military service as a "Rough Rider" during the Castilian-American War. America had become interested in Cuba's liberation in the 1890s as publications portrayed the evil of Spanish Rule. No one favored Cuban independence more than Roosevelt. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he trounce the war pulsate and prepared the Navy for war with Espana. The battleship USS Maine was dispatched to Havana, Republic of cuba. After a few quiet months, anchored in Havana Harbor, the Maine suddenly exploded, killing 262 American sailors. Espana denied blowing upward the Maine, but a US Navy investigation concluded that the explosion was caused by a mine. The crusade of the explosion remains a mystery, but American journalists and Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, at the time, felt certain that information technology was a Spanish human action of war. Shortly thereafter, war was declared.
Roosevelt served gallantly during this brief conflict, which lasted from May to July, 1898. An eager Roosevelt resigned his mail of Assistant Secretarial assistant of the Navy and petitioned Secretary of War Alger to allow him to course a volunteer regiment. Although he had three years of experience as a captain with the National Baby-sit, Roosevelt deferred leadership of the regiment to Leonard Woods, a war hero with whom he was friendly. Wood, as Colonel, and Roosevelt, every bit Lt. Colonel, began recruiting and organizing the First U.Due south. Volunteer Cavalry. They sorted through xx-3 thousand applications to grade the regiment! Roosevelt's fame and personality turned him into the de-facto leader of this rag-tag group of polo players, hunters,cowboys, Native Americans, and athletic college buddies. The regiment of "Roosevelt'due south Rough Riders" was born.
The Crude Riders participated in two important battles in Cuba. The start action they saw occurred at the Battle of Las Guasimas on June 24, where the Spanish were driven away. The Rough Riders lost seven men with thirty-four wounded. Roosevelt narrowly avoided bullets buzzing by him into the trees, showering splinters around his face. He led troops in a flanking position and the Spanish fled. American forces then assembled for an assault on the city of Santiago through the San Juan Hills. Colonel Woods was promoted in the field, and in response, Roosevelt happily wrote,"I got my regiment."
The Battle of San Juan Heights was fought on July one, which Roosevelt called "the corking solar day of my life." He led a serial of charges up Kettle Hill towards San Juan Heights on his horse, Texas, while the Rough Riders followed on human foot. He rode upward and down the hill encouraging his men with the orders to "March!" He killed one Spaniard with a revolver salvaged from the Maine. Other regiments continued alongside him, and the American flag was raised over San Juan Heights.
Hostilities ceased shortly afterward Santiago fell to siege, and the Treaty of Paris gave the The states its first possessions: Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
The war had lasting impacts. The "splendid little war" lasted ten weeks. Information technology destroyed the Spanish Empire and ushered in a new era of American Empire. Roosevelt's political career ignited equally he returned a war hero and national celebrity. He charged on horseback to victory at Kettle Hill and, collectively, San Juan Heights, and continued riding that horse all the fashion to the White House just three years subsequently. Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, one hundred years later on, for what was described as "…acts of bravery on 1 July, 1898, nearly Santiago de Republic of cuba, Republic of cuba, while leading a daring accuse up San Juan Loma."
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University
We hope you enjoy reading TR's own words about the Charge on San Juan Hill, or his reflections on the Rough Riders and the images that accompany them. If you are primarily interested in images relating to Theodore Roosevelt's experience in Cuba, delight visit our Spanish American State of war & Rough Riders photo anthology!
The video shown below this text is of Theodore Roosevelt leaving his chore as Assistant Secretarial assistant to the Navy. It is a silent picture, apart from the introduction, which informs the viewer that this video is from the Library of Congress. In the scene, TR, in formal apparel with hat, walks down the steps of the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. and turns and walks toward the stationary photographic camera. The southward portico of the White House is visible through trees in background. #TRleaving
Theodore Roosevelt Drove, Harvard College Library
"Secretarial assistant Alger offered me the command of one of these regiments. If I had taken it, beingness entirely inexperienced in armed forces work, I should not have known how to get it equipped most rapidly, for I should have spent valuable weeks in learning its needs, with the result that I should have missed the Santiago entrada, and might not even take had the consolation prize of going to Porto Rico. Fortunately, I was wise plenty to tell the Secretary that while I believed I could larn to command the regiment in a month, still that it was merely this very calendar month which I could not afford to spare, and that therefore I would exist quite content to go as Lieutenant-Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel. This was entirely satisfactory to both the President and Secretary, and, appropriately, Forest and I were speedily commissioned equally Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry." (pp.6 -7)
NPS
"But owing to the fact that the number of men originally allotted to u.s., 780, was speedily raised to 1,000, nosotros were given a chance to accept quite a number of eager volunteers who did not come from the Territories, but who possessed precisely the same atmosphere that distinguished our Southwestern recruits, and whose presence materially benefited the regiment. Nosotros drew recruits from Harvard, Yale, Prince ton, and many another college; from clubs like the Somerset, of Boston, and Knickerbocker, of New York; and from among the men who be longed neither to club nor to higher, but in whose veins the claret stirred with the same impulse which once sent the Vikings over sea."
(p. 9-10)
Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
"Then I went down to San Antonio [Texas] myself, where I found the men from New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma already gathered, while those from Indian Territory came in presently after my inflow. These were the men who made upwards the bulk of the regiment, and gave it its peculiar character. They came from the Four Territories which nevertheless remained within the boundaries of the United States; that is, from the lands that have been most recently won over to white civilization, and in which the conditions of life are nearest those that obtained on the frontier when there withal was a borderland...."
(p. fourteen-fifteen)
"All—Easterners and Westerners, Northerners and Southerners, officers and men, cow-boys and college graduates, wherever they came from, and whatever their social position—possessed in com mon the traits of hardihood and a thirst for take a chance. They were to a man born adventurers, in the old sense of the word."
(p. 19)
"The life histories of some of the men who joined our regiment would make many volumes of thrilling adventure."
(p. 24)
Image published in TR'due south Rough Riders
"There was Bucky O'Neill, of Arizona, Captain of Troop A, the Mayor of Prescott, a famous sheriff through out the West for his feats of victorious warfare confronting the Apache, no less than confronting the white road-agents and man-killers....Allyn Capron, who was, on the whole, the all-time soldier in the regiment. In fact, I think he was the platonic of what an American regular army officer should be. He was the fifth in descent from begetter to son who had served in the army of the United States, and in body and listen akin he was fitted to play his role to perfection. Tall and lithe, a remarkable boxer and walker, a commencement-class rider and shot, with yellow hair and piercing bluish optics, he looked what he was, the classic of the fighting man. He had under him one of the 2 companies from the Indian Territory; and he then presently impressed himself upon the wild spirit of his followers, that he got them ahead in discipline faster than whatsoever other troop in the regiment, while at the same time taking care of their bodily wants. His ceaseless attempt was and so to railroad train them, treat them, and inspire them as to bring their fighting efficiency to the highest possible pitch. He required instant obedience, and tolerated not the slightest evasion of duty; but his mastery of his fine art was so thorough and his performance of his own duty so rigid that he won at once not merely their adoration, simply that soldierly amore then readily given by the man in the ranks to the superior who cares for his men and leads them fearlessly in battle." Roosevelt, Theodore, Rough Riders, (p.xviii-19)
Theodore Roosevelt Drove, Houghton Library, Harvard University
"From the Indian Territory there came a number of Indians —Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks. Only a few were of pure blood. The others shaded off until they were absolutely indistinguishable from their white comrades; with whom, it maybe mentioned, they all lived on terms of complete equality…One of the gamest fighters and all-time soldiers in the regiment was Pollock, a full blooded Pawnee. He had been educated, like nigh of the other Indians, at one of those admirable Indian schools which have added so much to the total of the small credit account with which the White race balances the very unpleasant debit account of its dealings with the Carmine. Pollock was a silent, lonely young man—an excellent pen human being, much given to drawing pictures." Roosevelt, Theodore Rough Riders (p. 20-21)
Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
In his own words....
The charge on San Juan Hill, Cuba
Excerpts taken from the The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
"I sent messenger after messenger to try to find General Sumner or General Wood and get permission to advance, and was just about making up my mind that in the absence of orders I had better 'march toward the guns,' when Lieutenant Colonel Dorst came riding upwards through the storm of bullets with the welcome command 'to move forrard and support the regulars in the assault on the hills in front.' " (p.125)
Rough Riders past Theodore Roosevelt
"In the attack on the San Juan hills our forces numbered about vi,600.* There were virtually 4,500 Spaniards confronting us. Our full loss in killed and wounded was 1,071. Of the cavalry division there were, all told, some ii,300 officers and men, of whom 375 were killed and wounded. In the division over a 4th of the officers were killed or wounded, their loss being relatively one-half as great again equally that of the enlisted men—which was every bit information technology should be. was as it should exist. I call back we suffered more than heavily than the Spaniards did in killed and wounded (though we also captured some scores of prisoners)." (p.156-158)
National Archives
When Colonel Wood gets promoted, so does Theodore Roosevelt. This is an "Adjuration of Office" certifies Theodore Roosevelt'southward promotion to colonel of the Offset Volunteer Cavalry. (NARA, Records of the Adjutant General's Function, 1780s-1917, RG 94)
Text includes:
I
having been appointed a
Colonel Offset Volunteers Cavalry in the military service of the United states, do, solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will Support and defend the Constitution of the United states of america against all enemies, strange or domestic; that I will carry true religion and allegiance of the same; that I accept this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully belch the duties of the role on which I am nearly to enter: And so help me God.
[Signed]
Sworn to and subscribed before me, at
Santiago de Cuba, this
31stday of
July, 1898[signed] John H Parker
Source: https://www.nps.gov/thrb/learn/historyculture/tr-rr-spanamwar.htm
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