The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

  There followed a week of uneasy cease-fire as delicate negotiations went on, designed to ensure the capitulation of Santiago at no harm to Spanish honor. On 4 July, bands along the Heights tried to enliven matters with a selection of patriotic tunes (the Rough Riders ensemble contributing “Fair Harvard”), but the music had no charms for men sitting in mud, and it soon died away on the still morning air.128

  General Toral’s dignity was saved by an ingenious compromise worked out on 15 July. The Santiago garrison would surrender in two days if His Excellency, the Commander in Chief of the American forces, would kindly bombard the city (shooting at a safe height above the houses), until all Spanish soldiers had handed in their arms. They might thus be truthfully said to have capitulated under fire.129 That night the air shook convincingly all over Santiago, and on Sunday, 17 July, the Stars and Stripes was hauled up the palace flagpole, just as church bells rang in the hour of noon.130 It was time for Spain to begin her withdrawal from Cuba, after four centuries of imperial dominion in the New World. But first, lunch, wine, and siesta.

  ON MONDAY, 18 JULY, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt—the title was official now131—marched with the Cavalry Division over San Juan Hill to a camping ground on the foothills west of El Caney. The move away from the stinking, mosquito-filled trenches was deemed essential because of yellow fever. Already more than half the Rough Riders were, in Roosevelt’s words, “dead or disabled by wounds and sickness.” But the mosquitoes inland were just as poisonous as those nearer the coast, and his sick list lengthened.132

  Although mildly diverted by the “curious” fact that “the colored troops seemed to suffer as heavily as the white,”133 he did not leave the problem to medics or the commissariat. His men must eat and build up their strength for another possible campaign in Puerto Rico. Accordingly he sent a pack-train into Santiago with instructions to buy, at his expense, whatever “simple delicacies” they could find to supplement the nauseating rations in camp. One Rough Rider claimed that Roosevelt spent $5,000 in personal funds during the next few weeks—an exaggeration no doubt, but it at least indicates the extent of his generosity and concern.134

  As for himself, he remained healthy and strong as ever—so much so that he proposed to swim in the Caribbean one day with Lieutenant Jack Greenway.135 The two officers had been invited to Morro Castle by General Fitzhugh Lee, and Roosevelt’s attention was drawn to the wreck of the Merrimac, some three hundred yards out to sea. It would be fun, he said, pulling off his clothes, to go out and inspect her.

  What a colonel suggested, a lieutenant was bound to obey, and Greenway reluctantly agreed to accompany Roosevelt into the water.

  We weren’t out more than a dozen strokes before Lee, who had clambered up on the parapet of Fort Morro, began to yell.

  “Can you make out what he’s trying to say,” the old man asked, punctuating his words with long, overhand strokes.

  “Sharks,” says I, wishing I were back on shore.

  “Sharks,” says the colonel, blowing out a mouthful of water, “they” stroke “won’t” stroke “bite.” Stroke. “I’ve been” stroke “studying them” stroke “all my life” stroke “and I never” stroke “heard of one” stroke “bothering a swimmer.” Stroke. “It’s all” stroke “poppy cock.”

  Just then a big fellow, probably not more than ten or twelve feet long, but looking as big as a battleship to me, showed up alongside us. Then came another, till we had quite a group. The colonel didn’t pay the least attention.…

  Meantime the old general was doing a war dance up on the parapet, shouting and standing first on one foot and then on the other, and working his arms like he was doing something on a bet.

  Finally we reached the wreck and I felt better. The colonel, of course, got busy looking things over. I had to pretend I was interested, but I was thinking of the sharks and getting back to shore. I didn’t hurry the colonel in his inspection either.

  After a while he had seen enough, and we went over the side again. Soon the sharks were all about us again, sort of pacing us in, as they had paced us out, while the old general did the second part of his war dance. He felt a whole lot better when we landed, and so did I.136

  ON 20 JULY, Roosevelt found himself in command of the whole 2nd Brigade. This elevation was due to medical attrition in the higher ranks, rather than his heroism at San Juan, but it was flattering nevertheless. So, too, was the growing flood of letters and telegrams from New York, urging him to consider running for the governorship in the fall. He replied politely that he would not think of quitting his present position—“even for so great an office”—at least “not while the war is on.”137 With preparations for a peace treaty already well under way, the implication of acceptance was obvious, and plots were laid by various Republican groups to entrap him the moment he stepped ashore in the United States.138

  AT THIS POINT Roosevelt’s old genius for political publicity reasserted itself. On or about the last day of July, General Shafter called a conference of all division and brigade commanders to discuss the health situation. All agreed that it was critical, and that the War Department’s apparent unwillingness to evacuate the Army was inexcusable. Somebody must write a formal letter stating that in the unanimous opinion of the Fifth Corps staff, a further stay in Cuba would be to the “absolute and objectless ruin” of the fighting forces.139

  Having reached this agreement, the Regular officers hesitated. None wished to sacrifice his career by offending Secretary Alger or President McKinley. As the conference’s junior officer and a Volunteer, Roosevelt was nudged, or more probably leaped, into the breach. The result was a “round-robin” letter, drafted by himself, and signed by all present, dated 3 August 1898, and handed to the Associated Press.140

  We, the undersigned officers … are of the unanimous opinion that this Army should be at once taken out of the island of Cuba and sent to some point on the Northern seacoast of the United States … that the army is disabled by malarial fever to the extent that its efficiency is destroyed, and that it is in a condition to be practically entirely destroyed by an epidemic of yellow fever, which is sure to come in the near future.…

  This army must be moved at once, or perish. As the army can be safely moved now, the persons responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives.141

  The document, accompanied by a long and even stronger letter of complaint signed by Roosevelt alone, was published next morning. As predicted, Secretary Alger was enraged. So, too, was the President, whose first inkling of the round-robin came when he opened his morning papers.142 There were muttered threats in the War Department of court-martialing Roosevelt. Alger vengefully published an earlier letter from Roosevelt to himself, bragging that “the Rough Riders … are as good as any regulars, and three times as good as any State troops.”143

  This was a telling blow to any aspiring Governor of New York State. An instant storm of criticism blew up in the press. The Journal accused Roosevelt of “irresistible self-assertion and egotism,” ill-suited to his “really admirable services in the field.” The Philadelphia Press remarked that in view of “intense indignation” among the militia, it was unlikely that the New York Republican party could now nominate Theodore Roosevelt for Governor. But many newspapers found equal fault with Secretary Alger, and charged him with treachery in publishing a private letter. The Colonel could surely be excused his overweening pride in his regiment, commented the Baltimore American; after all, “he led these men in one of the noblest fights of the century.”144

  Within three days Shafter’s army was ordered to Montauk, Long Island.145

  The Rough Riders sailed out of Santiago Harbor on 8 August, leaving Leonard Wood behind as Military Governor of the city. They were not sorry to see Cuba sink into the sea behind them. In seven weeks of sweaty, sickly acquaintance with it, they had seen it transformed from a tropical Garden of Eden to a hell of denuded trees, cindery fields, and staring shells of houses.146 Th
e island’s bugs were in their veins, the smell of its dead in their nostrils, the taste of its horse meat and fecal water in their mouths. It would be days before the Atlantic breezes, cooling and freshening as they steamed north, swept away this sense of defilement.

  Yet the farther Cuba dropped away, the brighter shone the memory of their two great battles—in particular that rush up Kettle Hill behind the man with the flying blue neckerchief. They had done something which orthodox military strategists considered impossible, namely, stormed and captured a high redoubt over open ground, using weapons inferior to, and fewer than, those of a securely entrenched enemy.147 In doing so they had been the first to break the Spanish defenses; charging on, they had been first to take and hold the final crest overlooking Santiago.

  For Roosevelt himself, the “crowded hour” atop San Juan Heights had been one of absolute fulfillment. “I would rather have led that charge … than served three terms in the U.S. Senate.” And he would rather die from yellow fever as a result than never to have charged at all. “Should the worst come to the worst I am quite content to go now and to leave my children at least an honorable name,” he told Henry Cabot Lodge. “And old man, if I do go, I do wish you would get that Medal of Honor for me anyhow, as I should awfully like the children to have it, and I think I earned it.”148

  With fulfillment came purgation. Bellicose poisons had been breeding in him since infancy. During recent years the strain had grown virulent, clouding his mind and souring the natural sweetness of his temperament. But at last he had had his bloodletting. He had fought a war and killed a man. He had “driven the Spaniard from the New World.” Theodore Roosevelt was at last, incongruously but wholeheartedly, a man of peace.

  CHAPTER 26

  The Most Famous Man in America

  From the contending crowd, a shout,

  A mingled sound of triumph and of wailing.

  IT WAS MONDAY, 15 August 1898. All morning the crowd scattered across the sands of Montauk Point grew larger, as the troopship Miami wallowed at anchor three miles out to sea. Soldiers and civilians, women and children, reporters and Red Cross staff squinted over the water, wondering when the Rough Riders would be allowed to disembark. While they waited, a westerly breeze snapped the sails of yachts in the harbor, and swished through the pines of Whithemard Headland.1 It was this prevailing wind that had determined the selection of Montauk Point as the mustering-out camp for General Shafter’s army. Presumably it would blow away whatever yellow-fever bacilli lingered among the troops—wafting them somewhere in the direction of Spain.

  Not until nearly noon did the tugs bring Miami in, and nudge her sideways against the pier. The crowd peered eagerly at the deep rows of soldiers on board, searching in vain for a hero to recognize. Presently two spectacle-lenses flashed like prisms at the end of the bridge, and “a big bronzed-faced man in a light brown uniform”2 was seen waving his campaign hat. A hundred voices delightedly roared “Roosevelt! Roosevelt! Hurrah for Teddy and the Rough Riders!” Beside him somebody made out a whiskery little general in blue. “Hurrah for Fighting Joe!”3

  “I shall never forget the lustre that shone about him.”

  Colonel Roosevelt preparing to muster out at Camp Wikoff, Montauk, L.I. (Illustration 26.1)

  While sailors made the ship fast, an officer on the pier shouted, “How are you, Colonel Roosevelt?” The reply came back in a voice audible half a mile away: “I am feeling disgracefully well!”

  There was a pause while Roosevelt allowed the crowd to study the dozens of emaciated faces elsewhere on deck. “I feel positively ashamed of my appearance,” he went on, “when I see how badly off some of my brave fellows are.” Another pause. Then: “Oh, but we have had a bully fight!”4

  Laughter and cheers spread from ship to shore and back again.

  A QUARTER OF AN HOUR LATER General Wheeler stepped onto the soil of Long Island, toting a Spanish sword so long and heavy its scabbard dragged on the ground. He received a tumultuous welcome, but, to quote Edward Marshall, “when ‘Teddy and his teeth’ came down the gangplank, the last ultimate climax of the possibility of cheering was reached.”5

  Roosevelt’s appearance at close range showed that his claims of rude health were not exaggerated. Three months of hunger, thirst, heat, mud, and execrable food—not to mention that most arduous of human activities, infantry fighting—had not thinned him; if anything, he looked thicker and stronger than when he entrained for San Antonio. He wore a fresh uniform with gaiters and scuffed boots. A cartridge belt encircled his waist, and a heavy revolver thumped against his hip as he “fairly ran” the last few steps onto the dock.6

  Roosevelt was courteous to the official welcoming party—doffing his hat and bowing to the women on line—but out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a group of newspapermen, and soon made his way over to them.

  “Will you be our next Governor?” a voice cried.

  “None of that … All I’ll talk about is the regiment. It’s the finest regiment that ever was, and I’m proud to command it.”7

  While he talked, the Rough Riders were disembarking. To the horror and sympathy of the crowd, they appeared barely able to line up on the dock, let alone march over the hill to Camp Wikoff, a mile or so inland. Their ranks were pitifully decimated. “My God,” said one witness, “there are not half of the men there that left.”8

  Roosevelt was enjoying his conversation with the press so much that he paid little attention to the movement of soldiers behind him. His face radiated happiness as he described the feats of the Army’s “cracker-jack” regiment, and of himself as its Colonel. “This is a pistol with a history,” he said, fondling his revolver affectionately. “It was taken from the wreck of the Maine. When I took it to Cuba I made a vow to kill at least one Spaniard with it, and I did.…”9

  WELL MIGHT HE be happy. Theodore Roosevelt had come home to find himself the most famous man in America—more famous even than Dewey, whose victory at Manila had been eclipsed (if temporarily) by the successive glories of Las Guásimas, San Juan, Santiago, and the round-robin which “brought our boys back home.”10 The news that the United States and Spain had just signed a peace initiative came as a crowning satisfaction. Intent as Roosevelt might be to parry questions about his gubernatorial ambitions—thereby strengthening rumors that he had already decided to run—his days as a soldier were numbered.11 It remained only to spend five days in quarantine, and a few weeks supervising the demobilization of his regiment, before returning to civilian life and claiming the superb inheritance he had earned in Cuba.12

  Shortly before two o’clock the Colonel strode onto the beach, where the Cavalry Division had formed in double file, and mounted a horse beside General Wheeler. Color Sergeant Wright hoisted the ragged regimental flag, the band crashed out a march, and the Rough Riders trooped off to detention.13

  MEANWHILE, AT THE OPPOSITE end of Long Island, the man whose power it was to nominate, or not to nominate, Roosevelt for Governor sat pondering the state political situation. Senator Thomas Collier Platt was taking his annual vacation at the Oriental Hotel on Sheepshead Bay.14 He had been aware since at least 20 July that various groups of Republicans were working up a “Roosevelt boom,” but not until yesterday, 14 August, had two trusted lieutenants approached him formally on the subject. These men were Lemuel Ely Quigg, Roosevelt’s backer for Mayor in 1894, and Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., chairman of the Republican State Committee. Since Quigg was, in turn, chairman of the New York County Committee, and as forceful as Odell was stubborn, Platt had no choice but to listen while they pleaded the cause of the man he still regarded as “a perfect bull in a china shop.”15

  The Easy Boss knew that something drastic would have to be done to prevent the renomination, at the State Republican Convention in September, of Frank S. Black, New York’s present Governor. Black was a faithful protégé whose record victory in 1896 had covered Platt with glory; but he was also anathema to Republican Independents, who accused him, rather unjustly, of
gross spoilsmanship in office.16 This negative reputation might be counterbalanced by positive support for Black in upstate rural areas, were it not for a new scandal which redounded to the Governor’s discredit. On 4 August a special investigative committee had reported on “improper expenditures” of at least a million dollars in the state’s stalled Erie Canal Improvement project.17 With the entire multimillion-dollar appropriation already spent, and less than two-thirds of the canal deepened, Platt was severely embarrassed. If he supported Black’s bid for reelection he would lay himself and the party open to charges of cynicism and irresponsibility—even though the Governor had not been personally involved in the scandal. If, on the other hand, Platt dropped Black, it would be tantamount to admitting that there had been high-level corruption.18

  Platt weighed his alternatives, and chose the second, seeing it as the only way he might avoid a Democratic landslide in November. He agreed to let Quigg sound Roosevelt out, but made it clear that the Rough Rider was not his preference for the nomination. “If he becomes Governor of New York, sooner or later, with his personality, he will have to be President of the United States … I am afraid to start that thing going.”19

  QUIGG, HOWEVER, was not the first kingmaker to visit Roosevelt at Montauk. On Thursday, 18 August, John Jay Chapman, one of the Independent party’s fiercest and brightest idealists, walked up Camp Wikoff’s Rough Rider Street in search of the Colonel.20