The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [332]
Meanwhile, Roosevelt was supervising the unloading of his two horses, Rain-in-the-Face and Texas. Out of respect to their eminent owner, sailors winched them into the water on booms; but a huge breaker engulfed Rain-in-the-Face, and drowned her before she could be released from harness. Roosevelt, “snorting like a bull, split the air with one blasphemy after another,” wrote Albert Smith, the Vitagraph cameraman. The terrified sailors took such care with Texas that she seemed to hang in the air indefinitely, until Roosevelt, losing his temper again, bellowed, “Stop that goddamned animal torture!” This time there was no mishap, and the little horse splashed safely to shore.23
According to general orders, the Rough Riders were not due to land until much later in the day, after most of the regulars, but it was soon apparent to Roosevelt that “the go-as-you-please” principle applied to men as well as horses. As luck would have it, his old aide from the Navy Department, Lieutenant Sharp, steamed by in a converted yacht, and offered to pilot the Yucatán within a few hundred yards of shore. From this privileged position the Rough Riders landed well in advance of the other cavalry regiments.24 The Yucatán thereupon steamed away, taking large quantities of personal effects with her before any attempt was made to unload them. Roosevelt was left standing on the sand with nothing but a yellow mackintosh and a toothbrush. Fortunately his most essential items of baggage were inside his Rough Rider hat: several extra pairs of spectacles, sewn into the lining.25 If he was to meet his fate in Cuba, he wished to see it in clear focus.
More than six thousand troops were on Cuban soil by sunset. Not one shot had been fired in Daiquirí’s defense; the ruined village was occupied only by a few insurrectos, rather the worse for bombardment.
As dusk fell, campfires began to glow along the beach and in the little valley where the Rough Riders were lying on ponchos. At intervals there were shrieks and laughter, as red ants or crabs disturbed their rest;26 but the tropical air was balmy, the sky filled with comforting stars, and soon everybody except the guards was asleep.
POLITICAL RIVALRY, that most ubiquitous of social weeds, thrives just as fast on tropical islands as in the smoke-filled rooms of northern capitals. By the time the Rough Riders awoke on the morning of 23 June, two generals were already locked in contention for the honor of leading the march upon Santiago.
According to invasion orders, Major General Joseph (“Fighting Joe”) Wheeler, commander of the Cavalry Division, was supposed to follow Brigadier General H. W. Lawton of the 2nd Infantry Division to Siboney and remain there to supervise the rest of the landing operation while Lawton established himself farther inland on the Camino Real, or Santiago road. But not for nothing had Fighting Joe earned his nickname, and his reputation of “never staying still in one place long enough for the Almighty to put a finger on him.”27 The fact that Lawton was tall, and had fought for the Union in the Civil War, while Wheeler was five foot two, and had been the leader of the Confederate cavalry, only intensified the latter’s ambition to be first to encounter “the Yankees—dammit, I mean the Spaniards.”28 Needless to say, this attitude endeared him to the Rough Riders. “A regular game-cock,”29 was Roosevelt’s opinion of the bristling little general.
Lawton, whose division landed first on the twenty-second, had left for Siboney the same afternoon. Marching at a leisurely pace, he encamped en route and completed his journey next morning. The port (which had been so hastily vacated that tortillas were still steaming over breakfast coals) was reported