The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [346]
Not until nearly noon did the tugs bring Miami in, and nudge her sideways against the pier. The crowd peered eagerly at the deep rows of soldiers on board, searching in vain for a hero to recognize. Presently two spectacle-lenses flashed like prisms at the end of the bridge, and “a big bronzed-faced man in a light brown uniform”2 was seen waving his campaign hat. A hundred voices delightedly roared “Roosevelt! Roosevelt! Hurrah for Teddy and the Rough Riders!” Beside him somebody made out a whiskery little general in blue. “Hurrah for Fighting Joe!”3
“I shall never forget the lustre that shone about him.”
Colonel Roosevelt preparing to muster out at Camp Wikoff, Montauk, L.I. (Illustration 26.1)
While sailors made the ship fast, an officer on the pier shouted, “How are you, Colonel Roosevelt?” The reply came back in a voice audible half a mile away: “I am feeling disgracefully well!”
There was a pause while Roosevelt allowed the crowd to study the dozens of emaciated faces elsewhere on deck. “I feel positively ashamed of my appearance,” he went on, “when I see how badly off some of my brave fellows are.” Another pause. Then: “Oh, but we have had a bully fight!”4
Laughter and cheers spread from ship to shore and back again.
A QUARTER OF AN HOUR LATER General Wheeler stepped onto the soil of Long Island, toting a Spanish sword so long and heavy its scabbard dragged on the ground. He received a tumultuous welcome, but, to quote Edward Marshall, “when ‘Teddy and his teeth’ came down the gangplank, the last ultimate climax of the possibility of cheering was reached.”5
Roosevelt’s appearance at close range showed that his claims of rude health were not exaggerated. Three months of hunger, thirst, heat, mud, and execrable food—not to mention that most arduous of human activities, infantry fighting—had not thinned him; if anything, he looked thicker and stronger than when he entrained for San Antonio. He wore a fresh uniform with gaiters and scuffed boots. A cartridge belt encircled his waist, and a heavy revolver thumped against his hip as he “fairly ran” the last few steps onto the dock.6
Roosevelt was courteous to the official welcoming party—doffing his hat and bowing to the women on line—but out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a group of newspapermen, and soon made his way over to them.
“Will you be our next Governor?” a voice cried.
“None of that … All I’ll talk about is the regiment. It’s the finest regiment that ever was, and I’m proud to command it.”7
While he talked, the Rough Riders were disembarking. To the horror and sympathy of the crowd, they appeared barely able to line up on the dock, let alone march over the hill to Camp Wikoff, a mile or so inland. Their ranks were pitifully decimated. “My God,” said one witness, “there are not half of the men there that left.”8
Roosevelt was enjoying his conversation with the press so much that he paid little attention to the movement of soldiers behind him. His face radiated happiness as he described the feats of the Army’s “cracker-jack” regiment, and of himself as its Colonel. “This is a pistol with a history,” he said, fondling his revolver affectionately. “It was taken from the wreck of the Maine. When I took it to Cuba I made a vow to kill at least one Spaniard with it, and I did.…”9
WELL MIGHT HE be happy. Theodore Roosevelt had come home to find himself the most famous man in America—more famous even than Dewey, whose victory at Manila had been eclipsed (if temporarily) by the successive glories of Las Guásimas, San Juan, Santiago, and the round-robin which “brought our boys back home.”10 The news that the United States and Spain had just signed a peace initiative came as a crowning satisfaction.