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New Yorker’s overbearing courtesy (“he was polite almost to the extent of making one uneasy”),26 they could not help being impressed by his drive. “It was evident to all who met him that he was tremendously ambitious.”27 They noticed that Wood often asked advice, but seldom information; Roosevelt asked information, but never advice.28 For all the punctilious deference of the older man to the younger, for all Wood’s mastery of military bureaucracy (the Rough Riders were easily the best-armed and best-equipped regiment in the Army),29 there was no doubt, within a week of Roosevelt’s arrival, as to whom they considered to be colonel malgré lui. Wood knew it, and knew that his superiors in Washington knew it. “I realized that if this campaign lasted for any considerable length of time I would be kicked upstairs to make room for Roosevelt.”30

Yet the Colonel did not hesitate to exercise authority over his subordinate when he deemed it necessary. Roosevelt was still inexperienced in matters of military discipline, and when Wood heard that he had treated an entire squadron to unlimited beer—apparently as a reward for their improvement in drill—he made a pointed remark over supper “that, of course, an officer who would go out with a large batch of men and drink with them was quite unfit to hold a commission.” There was a dead silence. Later Roosevelt visited Wood privately in his tent and confessed to the crime. “I wish to say, sir, that I agree with what you said. I consider myself the damndest ass within ten miles of this camp. Good night.”31

Toward the end of May it was evident that the Rough Riders had already been forged into a warlike cavalry regiment. In the modest opinion of its Lieutenant Colonel, “it could whip Caesar’s Tenth Legion.”32 The speed of this transformation was not altogether surprising, considering the administrative efficiency of the Wood/Roosevelt team, and the fitness and equestrian skills of the troopers (over twenty applicants had been rejected for every one accepted).33 A local newspaper reported the men “sunburned and … impatient to get away.” There was not the slightest hint as to where the War Department intended to send them next, or indeed if they would ever get to Cuba. Outbursts of bellicose fervor began to disturb the peace of San Antonio. Two Texan troopers shot a mirrored saloon into smithereens, and the proprietor was too scared to ask for damages. On 26 May, a party of concertgoing Rough Riders were asked to discharge their revolvers discreetly during an outdoor performance of The Cavalry Charge, and responded with such gusto that the lights blew out, causing instant pandemonium.34 “If we don’t get them to Cuba quickly to fight Spaniards,” Wood remarked, “there is great danger that they’ll be fighting one another.”35

A day or two later the Colonel received a telegram from Washington. He read it expressionlessly, then turned and looked at his second-in-command. Suddenly the two men were hugging each other like schoolboys, while war-whoops resounded through the camp. The Rough Riders had been ordered to proceed to Tampa, Florida, for immediate embarkation on transport ships, “destination unknown.”36

BEFORE LEAVING SAN ANTONIO the Rough Riders dressed in full uniform and posed in formation for the official regimental photograph. Spread out across the plain, their mounts obedient now and immaculately groomed, they made a majestic military display. But the picture was marred by a slight irregularity of drill: Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt had absentmindedly allowed his horse to stand a few feet in advance of Colonel Wood’s.37

THE ROUGH RIDERS STRUCK CAMP at 5:00 A.M. on 29 May 1898. They expected to be off in a matter of hours, but so great was the difficulty of coaxing twelve hundred horses and mules aboard seven different trains that it was after midnight when the last door clanged shut. Somebody then discovered that the passenger cars were missing, and would not be available until dawn; so officers and men lay down in the brush beside the tracks to snatch what sleep they could.38

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