116 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



" To this the President answered as follows 



" ' I very much regret that I cannot comply 

 with the request in your telegram of yesterday. 

 The reasons I have stated in a public statement 

 made this morning, and I need not assure you 

 that my conclusions were based entirely upon 

 imperative considerations of public policy and 

 not upon personal or private choice.' 



" Accordingly, I communicated with as many of 

 the men who had agreed to raise units for service 

 in this division as possible, and after consulting with 

 about twenty of them I issued a statement which 

 was made public through the Press. 



" ' I now release you and all your men. I 

 wish to express my deep sense of obligation 

 to you and to all those who had volunteered 

 under, and in connection with this division. 



" ' As you doubtless know, I am very proud 

 of the Rough Riders, the First Volunteer 

 Cavalry, with whom I served in the Spanish- 

 American War. I believe it is a just and 

 truthful statement of the facts when I say that 

 this regiment did as well as any of the admirable 

 regular regiments with which it served in the 

 Santiago campaign. It was raised, armed, 

 equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept 

 two weeks aboard transports, and put through 

 two victorious fights, in which it lost one-third 

 of the officers and one-fifth of the men all 

 within sixty days from the time I received my 

 commission. 



" ' If the President had permitted me to raise 



