1 84 The Rough Riders 



earnestly hoped it would be, for such an assault 

 meant, as we knew by past experience, the loss of 

 a quarter of the attacking regiments (and we were 

 bound that the Rough Riders should be one of these 

 attacking regiments, if the attack had to be made). 

 There was, of course, nobody who would not rather 

 have assaulted than have run the risk of failure; 

 but we hoped the city would fall without need aris- 

 ing for us to suffer the great loss of life which a 

 further assault would have entailed. 



Naturally, the colonels and captains had nothing 

 to say in the peace negotiations which dragged along 

 for the week following the sending in the flag of 

 truce. Each day we expected either to see the city 

 surrender, or to be told to begin fighting again, 

 and toward the end it grew so irksome that we 

 would have welcomed even an assault in preference 

 to further inaction. I used to discuss matters with 

 the officers of my own regiment now and then, and 

 with a few of the officers of the neighboring regi- 

 ments with whom I had struck up a friendship 

 Parker, Stevens, Beck, Ayres, Morton, and Bough- 

 ton. I also saw a good deal of the excellent officers 

 on the staffs of Generals Wheeler and Sumner, es- 

 pecially Colonel Dorst, Colonel Garlington, Captain 

 Howze, Captain Steele, Lieutenant Andrews, and 

 Captain Astor Chanler, who, like myself, was a 

 volunteer. Chanler was an old friend and a fellow 



