The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [457]
107. RR. 80; Marshall, Story, 203.
108. Azo.135; RR.81.
109. RR.81.
110. See, e.g., RR.84, and TR.Auto. 245: “Memory plays funny tricks in such a fight [as San Juan], where things happen quickly, and all kinds of mental images succeed one another in a detached kind of way, while the work goes on.…”
111. TR.Wks.XII.306.
112. The following collage is based on RR.82 ff.; TR.Auto.247 ff.; Mor.847, 856–7. See also the eyewitness accounts reprinted by TR in TR.Auto., Appendix B to Ch. VII. There is some confusion as to whether TR killed his man on the first hill (Kettle), or the second (San Juan). The overwhelming weight of evidence is that he did so on Kettle. See Mor.853, TR to HCL: “Did I tell you that I killed a Spaniard with my own hand when I led the storm of the first redoubt?” TR to EKR, July 3, 1898 (TRB transcript) confirms. But TR prints a letter by Maj. M. J. Jenkins in TR.Auto.274, saying that the kill was on San Juan, and TR himself in RR.89 includes it in his account of the second charge. Close analysis of his language, however, indicates that he was indulging in a sort of flashback to the first. Maj. Jenkins must simply have been mistaken, and TR careless in printing his testimony.
113. “Jack-rabbit” quote: R. H. Ferguson to EKR (using TR’s own words), July 5, 1898. See also n. 119 below. RR.86.
114. Ib.; Davis, Campaigns, 218; RR.86.
115. RR.87. The Rough Riders’ crossfire was extremely deadly: see below.
116. RR.88; Hall, The Fun and Fighting of the Rough Riders (NY, 1899) 34.
117. RR.90; TR.Auto.248; ib., Appendix B to Ch. VII. Memo of John H. Parker to Stanley Allen, The Register, Feb. 14, 1938 (TRB); See also Mor.856–7, and Davis, Campaigns, 220 ff.
118. RR.89.
119. R. H. Ferguson to EKR, July 5, 1898. TR’s exultation, however excessive, must be considered in the light of undeniable atrocities by the other side during the Battle of San Juan. See Davis, Campaigns, 208, on the sharpshooters who methodically pumped bullets into the surgeons, Red Cross personnel, litter-bearers, and even the wounded themselves at Bloody Ford Hospital; also Mor.858. As for the sheer hatred of the enemy which battle instinctively inspires, see Cosby, “A RRR Looks Back,” 101, on his reaction to the fusillade at Kettle Hill: “Now we were hating mad—anger began to wriggle through our minds—and on down through our arms and hands.” But TR’s killing triumph lasted well beyond the date of final victory. Isaac Hunt, his old Assembly colleague, heard him talk about “doubling up” the Spanish soldier in later years, and “it made cold chills run down my back. He told it about like … I would talk about shooting a squirrel.” HUN.90. See also Wag.250.
120. Azo.144; RR. 101, 100. During four and a half months of official existence, the Rough Riders attained a 37% casualty rate, highest of any regiment in the war (1 out of every 3 dead, wounded, or diseased).
Note: TR’s heroism on San Juan Heights has been called into question by some historians, but an eloquent contemporary tribute to it, written by Admiral French E. Chadwick, on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the battle, is available in Maguire, Doris D., French Ensor Chadwick: Selected Letters and Papers (Washington, D.C., 1981), 462–63.
121. R. H. Ferguson to EKR, July 5, 1898.
122. Within a week, Gen. Wheeler had agreed to send a formal Medal of Honor recommendation to Washington. Mor.850.
123. Mor.853; TR.Auto.250; Prentice, “Rough Riders,” 46; R. H. Ferguson to EKR, July 5, 1898; Hall, Fun and Fighting, 218.
124. R. H. Ferguson to EKR, July 5, 1898.
125. RR.110 ff.; Freidel, War, 120 ff. and 185; Azo.140; Mor.846. Azo. 151–2 quotes Shafter’s letter to Secretary Alger, threatening withdrawal.
126. Freidel, War, 191.
127. Ib., 179; Shafter qu. Azo.155.
128. Ib., 156; Hall, Fun and Fighting, 218.
129. Azo.157–8.
130. Ib., 160.
131. Although TR did not formally accept his full colonelcy until July 31 (Herald, Sep. 25, 1898), his commission had already been issued on July 11 and sent to him in