The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [342]
AS HIS HEAD CLEARED and his lungs stopped heaving, Roosevelt found that Kettle Hill commanded an excellent view of Kent’s attack on San Juan Hill, still in progress across the valley about seven hundred yards away. The toiling figures seemed pitifully few. “Obviously the proper thing to do was help them.”114 For the next ten minutes he supervised a continuous volley-fire at the heads of Spaniards in the San Juan blockhouse, until powerful Gatlings took over from somewhere down below, and the infantry on the left began their final rush.115 At this the wolf rose again in Roosevelt’s heart. Leaping over rolls of wire, he started down the hill to join them, but forgot to give the order to follow, and found that he had only five companions. Two were shot down while he ran back and roared imprecations at his regiment. “What, are you cowards?” “We’re waiting for the command.” “Forward MARCH!”116 The Rough Riders willingly obeyed, as well as members of the 1st and 10th Cavalry. Again Roosevelt pounded over lower ground under heavy fire; again he surged up grassy slopes, and again he saw Spaniards deserting their high fortifications. To left and right, all along the crested line of San Juan Heights, other regiments were doing the same. “When we reached these crests we found ourselves overlooking Santiago.”117
UNTIL NIGHT FELL, Roosevelt was more interested in looking at the carnage behind him than ahead at the prize city. The trenches were filled with corpses in light blue and white uniforms, most of them with “little holes in their heads from which their brains were oozing”118—proof of the killing accuracy of Rough Rider volleys from the top of Kettle Hill. “Look at all these damned Spanish dead!” he exulted to Trooper Bob Ferguson, an old family friend.119
Official tallies revealed a fair score of American casualties—656 according to one count, 1,071 according to another. The Rough Riders contributed 89, but this only increased Roosevelt’s sense of pride; he noted that it was “the heaviest loss suffered by any regiment in the cavalry division.”120
“No hunting trip so far has ever equalled it in Theodore’s eyes,” Bob Ferguson wrote to Edith. “It makes up for the omissions of many past years … T. was just revelling in victory and gore.”121
Roosevelt’s exhilaration at finding himself a hero (already there was talk of a Medal of Honor)122 and, by virtue of his two charges, senior officer in command of the highest crest and the extreme front of the American line, was so great that he could not sit, let alone lie down, even in the midst of a surprise bombardment at 3:00 A.M. A shell landed right next to him, besmirching his skin with powder, and killing several nearby soldiers; but he continued to strut up and down, “snuffing the fragrant air of combat,”123 silhouetted against the flares like a black lion rampant.
“I really believe firmly now they can’t kill him,” wrote Ferguson.124
SO BEGAN THE SIEGE of Santiago. It was not accomplished without considerable further bloodshed, for the Spanish were found to have retreated only half a mile, albeit downhill, and their retaliatory shells did much damage during the next few days. The city proper was stiffly fortified, with five thousand troops and a seemingly inexhaustible stock of heavy ammunition. Meanwhile the thin blue and khaki line cresting San Juan Heights grew thinner as wounds, malarial fever, and dysentery