128 The Rough Riders 



of the white and colored regiments alike took the 

 greatest pride in seeing that the men more than did 

 their duty ; and the mortality among them was great. 

 I spoke to the captain in command of the rear 

 platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support 

 the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in 

 my judgment we could not take these hills by firing 

 at them, and that we must rush them. He answered 

 that his orders were to keep his men lying where 

 they were, and that he could not charge without 

 orders. I asked where the Colonel was, and as he 

 was not in sight, said, "Then I am the ranking offi- 

 cer here and I give the order to charge" for I did 

 not want to keep the men longer in the open suffer- 

 ing under a fire which they could not effectively re- 

 turn. Naturally the Captain hesitated to obey this 

 order when no word had been received from his own 

 Colonel. So I said, "Then let my men through, 

 sir," and rode on through the lines, followed by the 

 grinning Rough Riders, whose attention had been 

 completely taken off the Spanish bullets, partly by 

 my dialogue with the regulars, and partly by the 

 language I had been using to themselves as I got 

 the lines forward, for I had been joking with some 

 and swearing at others, as the exigencies of the case 

 seemed to demand. When we started to go through, 

 however, it proved too much for the regulars, and 

 they jumped up and came along, their officers and 



