The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [351]
To make his position doubly clear, at least to himself, he wrote two letters on 12 September, one to Quigg defining the conditions on which he would accept nomination, the other to the Citizens’ Union saying that a new statement that he was still available as an Independent candidate was “all right.” The warmth and length of the first letter (thirty-six lines) compared with the curt brevity (two lines) of the second left no doubt as to where his true hopes and sympathies lay.50 However neither recipient could make this comparison at the time, and both continued to work for Roosevelt’s nomination.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Tuesday, 13 September, was a poignant one for Roosevelt. Demobilization work was complete, and the Rough Riders prepared to muster out, troop by troop. Although the regiment’s life had been short—a mere 133 days from formation to dissolution—its rise had been meteoric, leaving an incandescent glow in the hearts of its nine hundred surviving members. Civilian life seemed a dull, even dismal prospect to those who had clerkships and ranch jobs and law school to return to. Yet the glory had to come to an end. At one o’clock bugles rang through the grassy streets of Camp Wikoff, summoning the Rough Riders to their last assembly.51
Roosevelt, writing in his tent, was surprised to hear his men lining up outside. He had not expected the mustering out to begin until a little later in the afternoon. But now a group of deferential troopers ducked in out of the sunshine and requested his attendance at a short open-air ceremony.
Emerging, the Colonel found his entire regiment arranged in a square on the plain, around a table shrouded with a lumpy blanket. Nine hundred arms snapped in salute as he stood with brown face flushing. He looked around him and saw tears starting in many eyes; his own dimmed too.52 Then Private Murphy of M Troop stepped forward and announced in a choking voice that the 1st Volunteer Cavalry wished to present their commanding officer with “a very slight token of admiration, love, and esteem.” Murphy struggled to summarize the “glorious deeds accomplished and hardships endured” by the Rough Riders under Roosevelt, while the sound of sobbing grew louder on all sides of the square. “In conclusion allow me to say that one and all, from the highest to the lowest … will carry back to their hearths a pleasant remembrance of all your acts, for they have always been of the kindest.”53
The blanket was whipped away to disclose a bronze bronco-buster, sculpted by Frederic Remington. From thumping hooves to insolently waving sombrero, it was the solid remembrance of a sight seen thousands of times in camp at San Antonio and Tampa, again in Cuba when there were native horses to be rustled, and yet again in Wikoff for the benefit of visitors and envious infantrymen. Roosevelt was so overcome he could only step forward and pat the bronco’s coldly gleaming mane.54 He found his voice with difficulty, forcing the words out:
Officers and men, I really do not know what to say. Nothing could possibly happen that would touch and please me as this has … I would have been most deeply touched if the officers had given me this testimonial, but coming from you, my men, I appreciate it tenfold. It comes to me from you who shared the hardships of the campaign with me, who gave me a piece of your hardtack when I had none, and who gave me your blankets when I had none to lie upon. To have such a gift come from this peculiarly American regiment touches me more than I can say. This is something I shall hand down to my children, and I shall value it more than the weapons I carried through the campaign.55
“Three cheers for the next Governor of New York,” yelled a voice.
“Wish we could vote for him,” came the answering shout.
Roosevelt asked the men to come forward and shake his hand.