After the sinking of The Maine , the Spanish-American War got off to a slow start. More than 250,000 soldiers rushed enthusiastically into the service. The army's quartermaster corps, however, had only fifty-seven men to supply the army with equipment. Soldiers gathered in Florida and waited impatiently for supplies and transportation. Some individuals organized and outfitted their own regiments. One such individual, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, resigned his post and formed a volunteer regiment of cavalry. Teddy Roosevelt did not intend to miss his chance at glory.
Roosevelt had been born forty years earlier to a wealthy New York family. He described himself as "a sickly, delicate boy" who "suffered much from asthma, and frequently had to be taken away on trips to find a place where [he] could breathe." Determined to overcome his physical limitations, Roosevelt embarked on a grueling program of body building. He practiced boxing, hunting, and riding, and after college he spent three years as a working cowboy in the wild Badlands of Dakota. "It was still the Wild West in those days," he wrote. "The West of the Indian and the buffalo hunter, the soldier and the cow-puncher." There he "led a free and hardy life with horse and rifle."
Roosevelt's political career political career began in the New York legislature. Next, after running unsuccessfully for mayor of New York, he served as that city's police commissioner. A loyal Republican, he campaigned tirelessly for McKinley in the 1896 election, and the president rewarded him with an appointment to the Department of the Navy. Now, seeking again the "hardy life with horse and rifle," Roosevelt waited in Tampa with his men. His regiment, which called itself the Rocky Mountain Riders, consisted mostly of cowboys from the West, although it contained a few Indians and wealthy polo players from the East as well. The papers called the regiment "Teddy's Terrors," but its commander was Leonard Wood, a physician who was also a colonel in the regular army. Roosevelt served as lieutenant colonel.
"Tampa was a scene of the wildest confusion," Teddy remembered. "There was no semblance of order." Thousands of men, horses, mules, and supply wagons were scattered about haphazardly in the tropical heat. Somehow the expedition reached Cuba. Still, "different parts of different outfits were jumbled together. . . . For instance, one transport had guns, and another had the locks for the guns. Soldiers went here, provisions went there, and who got ashore depended upon individual activity."
Roosevelt, always active, got his regiment ashore quickly. "We disembarked with our rifles, our ammunition belts, and not much else," he remembered. "I carried some food in my pocket, and a light coat which was my sole camp equipment for the next three days."
With the July temperature climbing above 100°, the soldiers plodded off through the thick jungle toward the city of Santiago. Wearing uniforms made of wool, the men struggled against the heat. Those who managed to obtain rations often discovered that their food had spoiled. Soon the ranks were riddled with malaria, fever, and dysentery. (Before the war ended, 5,200 Americans would perish from disease.) General Shafter, the army's commander, realized that if he didn't capture Santiago soon, he might not have an army left. After a few brief skirmishes, the armies confronted each other. The Spanish defended the San Juan hills, a long ridge east of Santiago. The Americans, arrayed in the valley below, sent up an observation balloon to study the city's defenses.
Roosevelt, who had managed to obtain a horse, rode up and down the lines anxiously. "I had come to the conclusion," he said, "that it was silly to stay in the valley firing up at the hills. . . . The thing to do was to try to rush the entrenchments." Never a man to stand on ceremony, Teddy took it upon himself to order the charge. With a pistol in one hand an a saber in the other, Teddy spurred his mount forward. His face grew flushed; his glasses clouded with steam; a wide grin covered his face. The rough riders followed on foot, and the Ninth Cavalry, an African American regiment, rushed forth beside them. As he reached the crest of Kettle Hill, Teddy saw its defenders fleeing before him. He fired at one of them, and later remarked that the man fell "as neatly as a jackrabbit."
Atop Kettle Hill, the soldiers dined on captured Spanish provisions. Later Teddy left his men and rode to the top of San Juan Hill, but the Tenth Cavalry, another African American regiment, had already stormed and captured it. That night the Americans repelled a Spanish counterattack. In the morning, General Shafter demanded that the Spanish commander surrender.
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