The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [206]
Colonel Roosevelt pets Teddy the golden eagle while members of the Rough Riders play with Cuba the dog and Josephine the cougar.
Both Josephine and Teddy were left behind in Tampa, since it would obviously have been nonsensical to bring a cougar and an eagle into battle.64 The third mascot, however, made it to Cuba. Roosevelt’s regiment had a “jolly dog” named Cuba, owned by Corporal Cade C. Jackson of Troop A from Flagstaff, Arizona. The mutt had dirty gray poodle-like fur and the personality of a Yorkie. Little Cuba could be easily scooped up with one hand. Frisky as a dog could be, Cuba actually accompanied the regiment “through all the vicissitudes of the campaign.” Aboard the Yucatan, Roosevelt had a Pawnee Indian friend draw Cuba—who ran “everywhere round the ship, and now and then howls when the band plays”—for his daughter Ethel.65
Every time the Rough Riders went into battle, Cuba would run off and disappear into the jungle, frightened by the noise of the artillery. Once the smoke cleared, however, when the men were bandaging wounds or frying eggs over a wood fire, Cuba would suddenly slink back into camp looking for handouts and back-scratches.66 Later, after the victory, a reunion photograph of the Rough Riders was taken in Montauk, with all three mascots in the same frame, Cuba begging near Colonel Roosevelt’s leg for either a treat or attention.67 According to Roosevelt, the dog was occasionally “oppressed” by Josephine but was sometimes able to “overawe the mountain lion “by simple decision of character.” Sometimes when Josephine growled, however, Cuba backed off, like a horse hearing the hum of a rattlesnake.68
Perhaps because Roosevelt was so comfortable with the trio of animals, knowing how to feed mice to the eagle and scratch Josephine behind the ears, these mascots added a Dr. Doolittle dimension to his character. In both San Antonio and Tampa Bay his two horses—Rain-in-the-Face and Texas—practically never left his side. When Vitagraph motion picture technicians were filming the Rough Riders wading ashore in Cuba off the Yucatan, a soldier was ordered to bring Roosevelt’s steeds safely onto the beach. Unfortunately, a huge wave broke on Rain-in-the-Face, causing him to drown: he inhaled seawater and could not be released from his harness. For the only time during the war days Roosevelt, his mind unsteadied, went berserk, “snorting like a bull,” as Albert Smith of Vitagraph recalled, “split[ing] the air with one blasphemy after another.” As the other horses were brought onto shore, Roosevelt kept shouting, “Stop that goddamned animal torture!” every time salt water got in a mare’s face.69
Skeptics of Rough Riders lore point out that Roosevelt was only seeking glory, always appearing—abracadabra—when a camera came along. Some critics carped that he used friendly reporters, such as Richard Harding Davis and John Fox, as tools. Roosevelt—so the opprobrium went—was thinking only about himself in Cuba, seeking fame amid the parlous carnage. What makes it clear that these are misrepresentations is the fact that all the surviving Rough Riders, even those who lost their legs or eyes, testified that he was a phenomenal leader. Never once did Roosevelt expect more from any volunteer than he gave of himself. No matter how dangerous the situation, he was in the thick of the action. The Spanish soldiers, for example, used smokeless powder, which made it impossible to tell where bullets were coming from in the jungle. At all hours and in all circumstances, Colonel Roosevelt, placing fate in the hands of God, refused to duck or run for cover as the bullets whizzed by. Calmly, even under enemy fire, Roosevelt helped wounded men make primitive tourniquets out of tree branches and bandannas. “Yesterday we struck the Spaniards and had a brisk fight for 2½ hours before we drove them out of their position,” Roosevelt wrote to Corinne and her husband, Douglas Robinson.