Yearning to join the fight for Cuban independence in the Spanish–American War, Theodore Roosevelt and Col. Leonard Wood formed the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry. They enlisted a motley crew from all walks of life, from cowboys and frontiersmen to Ivy League graduates. These 1,250 men became known as the Rough Riders. After training in San Antonio, Texas, they set out for the tropical jungles of Cuba. As they grappled with hunger, malaria, and occasional defeat, their many battles with the Spanish Army culminated in the death-defying charge to victory at San Juan Hill.
Through it all, Roosevelt kept a pocket diary in which he made daily entries about his experiences and the men who fought beside him. Imbued with his trademark vigor and certainty of purpose, Roosevelt’s firsthand account of this historic campaign paints a vivid picture of the rugged, independent spirit that came to define American heroism.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Yearning to join the fight for Cuban independence in the Spanish–American War, Theodore Roosevelt and Col. Leonard Wood formed the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry. They enlisted a motley crew from all walks of life, from cowboys and frontiersmen to Ivy League graduates. These 1,250 men became known as the Rough Riders. After training in San Antonio, Texas, they set out for the tropical jungles of Cuba. As they grappled with hunger, malaria, and occasional defeat, their many battles with the Spanish Army culminated in the death-defying charge to victory at San Juan Hill.
Through it all, Roosevelt kept a pocket diary in which he made daily entries about his experiences and the men who fought beside him. Imbued with his trademark vigor and certainty of purpose, Roosevelt’s firsthand account of this historic campaign paints a vivid picture of the rugged, independent spirit that came to define American heroism.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
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Overview
Yearning to join the fight for Cuban independence in the Spanish–American War, Theodore Roosevelt and Col. Leonard Wood formed the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry. They enlisted a motley crew from all walks of life, from cowboys and frontiersmen to Ivy League graduates. These 1,250 men became known as the Rough Riders. After training in San Antonio, Texas, they set out for the tropical jungles of Cuba. As they grappled with hunger, malaria, and occasional defeat, their many battles with the Spanish Army culminated in the death-defying charge to victory at San Juan Hill.
Through it all, Roosevelt kept a pocket diary in which he made daily entries about his experiences and the men who fought beside him. Imbued with his trademark vigor and certainty of purpose, Roosevelt’s firsthand account of this historic campaign paints a vivid picture of the rugged, independent spirit that came to define American heroism.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504042376 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 12/13/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| Sales rank: | 841,113 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (1858–1919) was the governor of New York before becoming the vice president of the United States. At age forty-two, Roosevelt became the youngest man to assume the US presidency after President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Beloved by the masses, Roosevelt fought for citizen fairness, railroad regulations, and national park conservation. In 1906, Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War. Besides his active career in politics, Roosevelt was an avid writer, publishing over ninety pieces in his lifetime, including Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, TheNaval War of 1812, and Rough Riders.
Read an Excerpt
The Rough Riders
By Theodore Roosevelt
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2016 Theodore RooseveltAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4237-6
CHAPTER 1
RAISING THE REGIMENT
DURING THE YEAR PRECEDING the outbreak of the Spanish War I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. While my party was in opposition, I had preached, with all the fervor and zeal I possessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the Western World. Now that my party had come to power, I felt it incumbent on me, by word and deed, to do all I could to secure the carrying out of the policy in which I so heartily believed; and from the beginning I had determined that, if a war came, somehow or other, I was going to the front.
Meanwhile, there was any amount of work at hand in getting ready the navy, and to this I devoted myself.
Naturally, when one is intensely interested in a certain cause, the tendency is to associate particularly with those who take the same view. A large number of my friends felt very differently from the way I felt, and looked upon the possibility of war with sincere horror. But I found plenty of sympathizers, especially in the navy, the army, and the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Commodore Dewey, Captain Evans, Captain Brownson, Captain Davis — with these and the various other naval officers on duty at Washington I used to hold long consultations, during which we went over and over, not only every question of naval administration, but specifically everything necessary to do in order to put the navy in trim to strike quick and hard if, as we believed would be the case, we went to war with Spain. Sending an ample quantity of ammunition to the Asiatic squadron and providing it with coal; getting the battle-ships and the armored cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to train them in manoeuvring together, and to have them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo-boats into a flotilla for practice; securing ample target exercise, so conducted as to raise the standard of our marksmanship; gathering in the small ships from European and South American waters; settling on the number and kind of craft needed as auxiliary cruisers — every one of these points was threshed over in conversations with officers who were present in Washington, or in correspondence with officers who, like Captain Mahan, were absent.
As for the Senators, of course Senator Lodge and I felt precisely alike; for to fight in such a cause and with such an enemy was merely to carry out the doctrines we had both of us preached for many years. Senator Davis, Senator Proctor, Senator Foraker, Senator Chandler, Senator Morgan, Senator Frye, and a number of others also took just the right ground; and I saw a great deal of them, as well as of many members of the House, particularly those from the West, where the feeling for war was strongest.
Naval officers came and went, and Senators were only in the city while the Senate was in session; but there was one friend who was steadily in Washington. This was an army surgeon, Dr. Leonard Wood. I only met him after I entered the navy department, but we soon found that we had kindred tastes and kindred principles. He had served in General Miles's inconceivably harassing campaigns against the Apaches, where he had displayed such courage that he won that most coveted of distinctions — the Medal of Honor; such extraordinary physical strength and endurance that he grew to be recognized as one of the two or three white men who could stand fatigue and hardship as well as an Apache; and such judgment that toward the close of the campaigns he was given, though a surgeon, the actual command of more than one expedition against the bands of renegade Indians. Like so many of the gallant fighters with whom it was later my good fortune to serve, he combined, in a very high degree, the qualities of entire manliness with entire uprightness and cleanliness of character. It was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, who scorned everything mean and base, and who also possessed those robust and hardy qualities of body and mind, for the lack of which no merely negative virtue can ever atone. He was by nature a soldier of the highest type, and, like most natural soldiers, he was, of course, born with a keen longing for adventure; and, though an excellent doctor, what he really desired was the chance to lead men in some kind of hazard. To every possibility of such adventure he paid quick attention. For instance, he had a great desire to get me to go with him on an expedition into the Klondike in mid-winter, at the time when it was thought that a relief party would have to be sent there to help the starving miners.
In the summer he and I took long walks together through the beautiful broken country surrounding Washington. In winter we sometimes varied these walks by kicking a foot-ball in an empty lot, or, on the rare occasions when there was enough snow, by trying a couple of sets of skis or snow-skates, which had been sent me from Canada.
But always on our way out to and back from these walks and sport, there was one topic to which, in our talking, we returned, and that was the possible war with Spain. We both felt very strongly that such a war would be as righteous as it would be advantageous to the honor and the interests of the nation; and after the blowing up of the Maine, we felt that it was inevitable. We then at once began to try to see that we had our share in it. The President and my own chief, Secretary Long, were very firm against my going, but they said that if I was bent upon going they would help me. Wood was the medical adviser of both the President and the Secretary of War, and could count upon their friendship. So we started with the odds in our favor.
At first we had great difficulty in knowing exactly what to try for. We could go on the staff of any one of several Generals, but we much preferred to go in the line. Wood hoped he might get a commission in his native State of Massachusetts; but in Massachusetts, as in every other State, it proved there were ten men who wanted to go to the war for every chance to go. Then we thought we might get positions as field-officers under an old friend of mine, Colonel — now General — Francis V. Greene, of New York, the Colonel of the Seventy-first; but again there were no vacancies.
Our doubts were resolved when Congress authorized the raising of three cavalry regiments from among the wild riders and riflemen of the Rockies and the Great Plains. During Wood's service in the Southwest he had commanded not only regulars and Indian scouts, but also white frontiersmen. In the Northwest I had spent much of my time, for many years, either on my ranch or in long hunting trips, and had lived and worked for months together with the cowboy and the mountain hunter, faring in every way precisely as they did.
Secretary Alger offered me the command of one of these regiments. If I had taken it, being entirely inexperienced in military 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 campaign, and might not even have had the consolation prize of going to Porto Rico. Fortunately, I was wise enough to tell the Secretary that while I believed I could learn to command the regiment in a month, that it was just this very month which I could not afford to spare, and that therefore I would be quite content to go as Lieutenant-Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel.
This was entirely satisfactory to both the President and Secretary, and, accordingly, Wood and I were speedily commissioned as Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. This was the official title of the regiment, but for some reason or other the public promptly christened us the "Rough Riders." At first we fought against the use of the term, but to no purpose; and when finally the Generals of Division and Brigade began to write in formal communications about our regiment as the "Rough Riders," we adopted the term ourselves.
The mustering-places for the regiment were appointed in New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory. The difficulty in organizing was not in selecting, but in rejecting men. Within a day or two after it was announced that we were to raise the regiment, we were literally deluged with applications from every quarter of the Union. Without the slightest trouble, so far as men went, we could have raised a brigade or even a division. The difficulty lay in arming, equipping, mounting, and disciplining the men we selected. Hundreds of regiments were being called into existence by the National Government, and each regiment was sure to have innumerable wants to be satisfied. To a man who knew the ground as Wood did, and who was entirely aware of our national unpreparedness, it was evident that the ordnance and quartermaster's bureaus could not meet, for some time to come, one-tenth of the demands that would be made upon them; and it was all-important to get in first with our demands. Thanks to his knowledge of the situation and promptness, we immediately put in our requisitions for the articles indispensable for the equipment of the regiment; and then, by ceaseless worrying of excellent bureaucrats, who had no idea how to do things quickly or how to meet an emergency, we succeeded in getting our rifles, cartridges, revolvers, clothing, shelter-tents, and horse gear just in time to enable us to go on the Santiago expedition. Some of the State troops, who were already organized as National Guards, were, of course, ready, after a fashion, when the war broke out; but no other regiment which had our work to do was able to do it in anything like as quick time, and therefore no other volunteer regiment saw anything like the fighting which we did.
Wood thoroughly realized what the Ordnance Department failed to realize, namely, the inestimable advantage of smokeless powder; and, moreover, he was bent upon our having the weapons of the regulars, for this meant that we would be brigaded with them, and it was evident that they would do the bulk of the fighting if the war were short. Accordingly, by acting with the utmost vigor and promptness, he succeeded in getting our regiment armed with the Krag-Jorgensen carbine used by the regular cavalry.
It was impossible to take any of the numerous companies which were proffered to us from the various States. The only organized bodies we were at liberty to accept were those from the four Territories. But owing to the fact that the number of men originally allotted to us, 780, was speedily raised to 1,000, we 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 temper that distinguished our Southwestern recruits, and whose presence materially benefited the regiment.
We drew recruits from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and many another college; from clubs like the Somerset, of Boston, and Knickerbocker, of New York; and from among the men who belonged neither to club nor to college, but in whose veins the blood stirred with the same impulse which once sent the Vikings over sea. Four of the policemen who had served under me, while I was President of the New York Police Board, insisted on coming — two of them to die, the other two to return unhurt after honorable and dangerous service. It seemed to me that almost every friend I had in every State had some one acquaintance who was bound to go with the Rough Riders, and for whom I had to make a place. Thomas Nelson Page, General Fitzhugh Lee, Congressman Odell, of New York, Senator Morgan; for each of these, and for many others, I eventually consented to accept some one or two recruits, of course only after a most rigid examination into their physical capacity, and after they had shown that they knew how to ride and shoot. I may add that in no case was I disappointed in the men thus taken.
Harvard being my own college, I had such a swarm of applications from it that I could not take one in ten. What particularly pleased me, not only in the Harvard but the Yale and Princeton men, and, indeed, in these recruits from the older States generally, was that they did not ask for commissions. With hardly an exception they entered upon their duties as troopers in the spirit which they held to the end, merely endeavoring to show that no work could be too hard, too disagreeable, or too dangerous for them to perform, and neither asking nor receiving any reward in the way of promotion or consideration. The Harvard contingent was practically raised by Guy Murchie, of Maine. He saw all the fighting and did his duty with the utmost gallantry, and then left the service as he had entered it, a trooper, entirely satisfied to have done his duty — and no man did it better. So it was with Dudley Dean, perhaps the best quarterback who ever played on a Harvard Eleven; and so with Bob Wrenn, a quarterback whose feats rivalled those of Dean's, and who, in addition, was the champion tennis player of America, and had, on two different years, saved this championship from going to an Englishman. So it was with Yale men like Waller, the high jumper, and Garrison and Girard; and with Princeton men like Devereux and Channing, the football players; with Larned, the tennis player; with Craig Wadsworth, the steeple-chase rider; with Joe Stevens, the crack polo player; with Hamilton Fish, the ex-captain of the Columbia crew, and with scores of others whose names are quite as worthy of mention as any of those I have given. Indeed, they all sought entry into the ranks of the Rough Riders as eagerly as if it meant something widely different from hard work, rough fare, and the possibility of death; and the reason why they turned out to be such good soldiers lay largely in the fact that they were men who had thoroughly counted the cost before entering, and who went into the regiment because they believed that this offered their best chance for seeing hard and dangerous service. Mason Mitchell, of New York, who had been a chief of scouts in the Riel Rebellion, travelled all the way to San Antonio to enlist; and others came there from distances as great.
Some of them made appeals to me which I could not possibly resist. Woodbury Kane had been a close friend of mine at Harvard. During the eighteen years that had passed since my graduation I had seen very little of him, though, being always interested in sport, I occasionally met him on the hunting field, had seen him on the deck of the Defender when she vanquished the Valkyrie, and knew the part he had played on the Navajoe, when, in her most important race, that otherwise unlucky yacht vanquished her opponent, the Prince of Wales's Britannia. When the war was on, Kane felt it his duty to fight for his country. He did not seek any position of distinction. All he desired was the chance to do whatever work he was put to do well, and to get to the front; and he enlisted as a trooper. When I went down to the camp at San Antonio he was on kitchen duty, and was cooking and washing dishes for one of the New Mexican troops; and he was doing it so well that I had no further doubt as to how he would get on.
My friend of many hunts and ranch partner, Robert Munro Ferguson, of Scotland, who had been on Lord Aberdeen's staff as a Lieutenant but a year before, likewise could not keep out of the regiment. He, too, appealed to me in terms which I could not withstand, and came in like Kane to do his full duty as a trooper, and like Kane to win his commission by the way he thus did his duty.
I felt many qualms at first in allowing men of this stamp to come in, for I could not be certain that they had counted the cost, and was afraid they would find it very hard to serve — not for a few days, but for months — in the ranks, while I, their former intimate associate, was a field-officer; but they insisted that they knew their minds, and the events showed that they did. We enlisted about fifty of them from Virginia, Maryland, and the Northeastern States, at Washington. Before allowing them to be sworn in, I gathered them together and explained that if they went in they must be prepared not merely to fight, but to perform the weary, monotonous labor incident to the ordinary routine of a soldier's life; that they must be ready to face fever exactly as they were to face bullets; that they were to obey unquestioningly, and to do their duty as readily if called upon to garrison a fort as if sent to the front. I warned them that work that was merely irksome and disagreeable must be faced as readily as work that was dangerous, and that no complaint of any kind must be made; and I told them that they were entirely at liberty not to go, but that after they had once signed there could then be no backing out.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright © 2016 Theodore Roosevelt. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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Table of Contents
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- APPENDIX A
- APPENDIX B
- APPENDIX C
- APPENDIX D
- Copyright
Introduction
Theodore Roosevelt, the second of four children, was born in New York City on October 27, 1858, had six children of his own (one with his first wife Alice, who passed away at a young age, and five with his second wife Edith), and died at Sagamore Hill, his permanent home in Oyster Bay, New York, on January 6, 1919. During this sixty-year lifespan, Roosevelt wrote prolifically, producing over fifty volumes in a wide array of fields, most notably history, natural science, and political and social advocacy. One scholar, writing in 1980, has labeled Roosevelt "perhaps theoutstanding generalist of his era." Prior to publishing The Rough Riders in 1899, Roosevelt had authored important works of history - most impressively The Naval War of 1812 (1882) and a classic four-volume narrative study of the American frontier, The Winning of the West (1889-1896) - and three books centered on his own experiences during the mid-1880s as a rancher and hunter in the Dakota Badlands. Thus, The Rough Riders, both a revealing personal memoir and a compelling historical narrative, exhibits the talents of a seasoned historian-memoirist.
Roosevelt kept a pocket diary, in which he entered sparse jottings, during his months as a military officer in 1898. Under the editorship of Wallace Finley Dailey, the full contents have recently been published in Pocket Diary 1898. As a sample, the entry for July 28 reads in its entirety as follows: "Crockett; the wound; the coffee; rescue by Russell. The parson Morrison. How he ground coffee." In combination with his exceptional memory, this diary enabled Roosevelt to craft The Rough Riders.
Roosevelt's diary is replete with candid references to the War Department's (and President William McKinley's) "utter confusion," "blunders," "maladministration," "folly," and "mismanagement." In The Rough Riders, Roosevelt was naturally more circumspect on this subject; nonetheless, he did address it pointedly, as when he referred to "a campaign in which the blunders that had been committed [by the War Department] had been retrieved only by the valor and splendid soldierly qualities of the officers and enlisted men." More consequentially, in early August 1898 - with the Rough Riders and other U.S. forces languishing in Cuba in extremely unhealthful conditions more than two weeks after the surrender of Santiago - Roosevelt took the lead in a common effort among the officers to induce a withdrawal order. He sent a letter of his own to Major-General William Shafter, the commander of the expedition, and joined other high-ranking officers in a circular letter to Shafter, who wholeheartedly supported their stance. Both of these carefully worded yet powerfully unambiguous letters (see Appendix C) were made public via the press, embarrassing authorities in Washington and prompting an order for the troops to return to the United States. Back home with his regiment, at Montauk on Long Island, Roosevelt then wrote a lengthy and frank report to Secretary of War Russell Alger about the Rough Riders' wartime experiences (see Appendix B).
As an ill-suited cabinet official who was subsequently compelled to resign due to incompetence, Alger apparently developed a grudge against Roosevelt. In recognition of Roosevelt's leadership and bravery on July 1, the entire U.S. chain of command in Cuba recommended the colonel for the Congressional Medal of Honor (see Appendix E). But this recommendation was rejected, and Roosevelt was denied the award. In The Rough Riders, Roosevelt characterized the Medal of Honor as "that most coveted of distinctions" - and he did indeed covet it.
Nearly a century later, in 1996, for reasons unrelated to the Roosevelt matter, Congress repealed the statute of limitations pertaining to military decorations. This action sparked a campaign to rectify, however belatedly, the injustice suffered by Roosevelt. Representatives Paul McHale, Rick Lazio, and Steve Buyer and Senator Kent Conrad played leading roles, securing the unanimous passage of favorable legislation by both houses of Congress in October 1998 and, in Conrad's case, meeting personally with President Bill Clinton to encourage a positive decision. Also directly engaged was the Theodore Roosevelt Association, represented most actively by Executive Director John Gable (upon whose published account this paragraph is largely based) and, especially, Tweed Roosevelt, Theodore's great-grandson. In an initiative coordinated by Edward Renehan, a group of fifteen recognized authorities, including a number of prominent historians, weighed in with a jointly signed letter to President Clinton and the secretaries of defense and the army; it was time "to right a century-old wrong," they declared in conclusion. Finally, in response to an army panel's recommendation, as well as to the congressional bills and Conrad's personal representation, on January 16, 2001, Clinton - correcting, in his own words, "a significant historical error" - awarded the Medal of Honor to Roosevelt posthumously, presenting it to the Rough Rider's family in a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Over the next twenty months, Roosevelt's medal was displayed publicly at various sites across the United States. Then, on September 16, 2002, it was delivered by Tweed Roosevelt to President George W. Bush in another Roosevelt Room ceremony, thereby becoming a part of the permanent collection of the White House.
The Rough Riders not only is an excellent work of history; it also recounts events that - soon after they occurred - would have a profound impact on history. Accomplished author and military hero though he was, it was in public service that Theodore Roosevelt made by far his greatest mark. And it was his time with the Rough Riders that created the opportunity for him to rise to the highest levels of American government. It is a reflection of sound historical as well as artistic judgment on the part of David Grubin, producer and director of the four-hour 1996 PBS video TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt, that he begins by identifying July 1, 1898, as the day that made Roosevelt "one of the most famous men in America and would catapult him into the presidency."
Roosevelt returned from Cuba a national hero. (The serial publication of The Rough Riders in Scribner's Magazine during the first half of 1899, followed by three printings of the book by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1899 and twelve additional printings during Roosevelt's lifetime, would play a considerable part in spreading and sustaining that image.) Roosevelt had previously held, and performed with distinction in, several positions in local, state, and national government - most recently as assistant secretary of the navy, the post from which he resigned to take up arms against Spain - but new horizons were now open to him. Right away he was handed the Republican nomination for governor of New York by a scandal-ridden party leadership - that leadership's desire for victory took precedence over its uneasiness about the colonel's independence - and he defeated his Democratic opponent by a narrow margin. As governor in 1899 and 1900, Roosevelt achieved a very admirable reform record, often acting in defiance of the wishes of Thomas Platt, the state party boss. Platt proceeded to push successfully for Roosevelt's selection as William McKinley's running mate in 1900, hoping that vice presidential obscurity would befall the Rough Rider. But when McKinley died from an assassin's bullet on September 14, 1901, Roosevelt suddenly became the youngest-ever (then or since) U.S. president. Clearly the crucial first link in this fascinating chain of events was Roosevelt's heroism in Cuba. Without it there would have been no governorship, no vice presidency, no presidency.
Of course, if Roosevelt had been a status quo president in the mold of McKinley and of McKinley's predecessors of the 1880s and 1890s - or even if he had been a failure as a reformer and as a statesman - far less historical significance would attach to the story of the Rough Riders. Roosevelt, however, proved to be a dynamic, farseeing, and politically effective chief executive - a self-styled and authentic "practical idealist" - who left an indelible imprint on the history of the United States and the world.
President Roosevelt's policies on corporations, labor unions, and the American citizenry in general came to be known as the Square Deal. Roosevelt believed firmly in the relative efficiency of large-scale enterprise, but he believed just as firmly that the national government needed to be empowered to supervise and regulate big corporations in the public interest, and that trade unions and the countervailing power they represented were a modern necessity as well. Despite his high-profile, successful antitrust actions against the Northern Securities Company, the Standard Oil Company, and other large corporations, Roosevelt was fundamentally more a regulator than a trust-buster. Such landmark laws as the Hepburn railroad bill, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act were the first major contributions to the system of federal regulation of business on behalf of the citizenry that became and remains an important aspect of modern American life.
Theodore Roosevelt was also the foremost environmentalist president in U.S. history. His conservation policies provided a vivid demonstration of the Rooseveltian concept of stewardship, according to which a primary duty of the president is to act for the benefit of the American people as a whole, future generations emphatically included. The two principles at the heart of Roosevelt's conservation policies were controlled utilization and preservation, both of which he implemented with enormous determination and vigor right up to the end of his second term in March 1909. The results were more than 150 million acres of new forest reserves, the first twenty-four federal irrigation projects, the first four national game preserves, the first fifty-one federal bird reservations, the first eighteen national monuments, five new national parks, the appointment of four major conservation commissions, and, during the final year of Roosevelt's presidency, the convening of three major conservation conferences. This was truly a breathtaking record - a record that by itself would be sufficient to mark Roosevelt's presidency as a very beneficial and important one.
President Roosevelt's accomplishments in the arena of diplomacy also were extraordinary. Indeed, as a hands-on diplomatist of great discretion, acumen, and vision, Roosevelt may have been the greatest practitioner of statecraft in twentieth-century U.S. history. Having been an avid and articulate proponent of strengthening America's military capacity long before his presidency, Roosevelt fully grasped the complex and far-reaching implications of the United States' recent emergence as a great power (a process in which the Spanish-American War had been a watershed event). He sharply increased the size and the efficiency of the American navy, secured permanent U.S. control of the Panama Canal Zone, began building the canal, and established U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. He adroitly cultivated a special relationship between Great Britain and the United States (an undertaking in which his close friendship with the Briton Arthur Lee, the origins of which can be found in The Rough Riders, was a substantial asset), while at the same time maintaining amicable relations with Germany and Japan, the two powers he viewed as America's most formidable potential enemies. His skillful mediation brought an end to the Russo-Japanese War (and won him a Nobel Peace Prize), and his deft behind-the-scenes diplomacy facilitated a peaceful resolution of the highly dangerous Franco-German crisis over Morocco. Overall, the twenty-sixth president was almost uniformly successful both in dealing with specific foreign policy challenges and in advancing his broader objectives. Moreover, his statesmanship significantly enhanced the United States' image in the world. It is worthy of note that the perspicacious Roosevelt based his foreign policy on sophisticated versions of the very principles - global U.S. interests, credible deterrent power, and an Anglo-American partnership - that would guide later American presidents to victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. And, to date, the forceful U.S. response to the ongoing threat posed by terrorists and rogue regimes also can readily be characterized as Rooseveltian.
In summation, The Rough Riders stands as a classic and thrilling work in the field of military history. Additionally, from a broader perspective, it recounts a true story that made possible one of the most dynamic and most constructive presidencies in the history of the United States.
William N. Tilchin teaches history in the College of General Studies at Boston University. He is the author of Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (St. Martin's Press, 1997) and numerous essays on Roosevelt's presidency and related topics.
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