The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [204]
One Rough Rider to whom Roosevelt took a real shine was Corporal David E. Warford of Troop B (Arizona Territory), under the leadership of Captain James H. McClintock.50 Warford came from Globe, Arizona, a one-trough mining town in the heart of Apache country. It seemed to Roosevelt that Warford had been born on horseback. Constantly smoking, the most confident equestrian around, and able to call out a bird by its song, Warford never complained and was full of bounce. Colonel Roosevelt grew even closer to Warford after the young volunteer was shot in both thighs in the battle of Las Guásimas and continued fighting, injured, before repairing to a hospital ship.51 Warford was not literate, and he bragged that he had “kilt” Spaniards and that a wounded fellow Arizonian was “crow-bait,” but Roosevelt admired his western spirit. If the forest reserves had brave outdoorsmen like Warford protecting them, Roosevelt later realized, timber thieves and game poachers could finally be stopped.
What Roosevelt called his “crowded hour” occurred on July 1, 1898, when, on horseback, he led the Rough Riders (plus elements of the Ninth and Tenth regiments of regulars, African-American buffalo soldiers, and other units) up Kettle Hill (near San Juan Hill) in what is known in military history as the battle of San Juan Heights. Once the escarpment was captured Roosevelt, now on foot, killed a Spaniard with a pistol which had been raked up from the sunken Maine. Social Darwinism seemed to have played out in Roosevelt’s favor that day—he was the fittest pistolero. Roosevelt later said that the charge up Kettle Hill surpassed all the other highlights of his life. Somewhat creepily, it was reported, Roosevelt had beamed through the battlefield depredations and gory deaths, always flashing a wide smile, but with his pistol pointed. Whether he was ordering artillery reinforcements, helping men cope with the prostrating heat, finding canned tomatoes to feed the troops, encouraging Cuban insurgent, or miraculously procuring a huge bag of beans, Roosevelt was always on top of the situation, doing whatever was humanly possible to help his men avoid both yellow fever and unnecessary enemy fire. There was no arguing about it: Colonel Roosevelt had distinguished himself at Las Guásimas, San Juan, and Santiago (although the journalists did inflate his heroics to make better copy). By the Fourth of July, Roosevelt had become a legend in the United States, the most beloved paragon produced in what Secretary of State John Hay called “a splendid little war.”52
With the capture of San Juan Heights—the villages and vista spots overlooking Santiago—the city itself soon surrendered. The war was practically over. The stirring exploits of Colonel Roosevelt were published all over America, turning him overnight in to the kind of gallant warrior he always dreamed of being. But the hardships Roosevelt had suffered were real. Supplies like eggs, meat, sugar, and jerky were nonexistent. Hardtack biscuits—the soldiers’ staple—had attracted hideous little worms. Just to stay alive the Rough Riders began frying mangoes.53 Worse still, the 100-degree heat caused serious dehydration. Then there was the ghastly toll from tropical