CHAPTER IX. 
ROOSEVELT—THE ROUGH RIDER. 
Organizing the Regiment—A Composite Lot—College Athletes and Cowboys—The Officers— 
Orders to March—The Landing at Daiquiri—The First Skirmish—Death of Sergeant 
Fish and Captain Capron—The La Quassina Fight—The Baptism of Fire—San Juan 
Hill—The Surrender of Santiago—The Celebrated “Round Robin.” 
W HEN the news of Dewey’s victory reached this country, Mr. 
Roosevelt resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy. * 4 There is nothing more for me to do here,” he said, 
4 ‘I’ve got to get into the fight myself.” And again to a friend of his, “I 
have been a jingo all my life, now I am going to take my own medicine.” 
He first endeavored to get a staff appointment, but finally, when there 
began to be talk of a regiment of “rough riders,” he felt that his oppor¬ 
tunity had come. 
ROOSEVELT IS OFFERED THE COMMAND. 
While Assistant Secretary of the Navy he had met Dr. Leonard Wood, 
and a friendship had at once sprung up between them. Dr. Wood had 
previously served in General Miles’ campaign against the Apaches, where 
he had won a medal of honor for remarkable bravery. When the war 
broke out, they discovered a mutual desire to go to the front, and when 
Congress authorized the raising of three Western cavalry regiments, both 
expressed a desire to serve in the same command. Secretary Alger 
offered Roosevelt the command of one of these regiments, but he replied 
that while he believed he could learn to command a regiment in a montlj, 
that this was just the very month that he could not afford to spare and 
that, therefore, he would be quite content to go as lieutenant-colonel if he 
would make his friend Wood colonel. 
“This was satisfactory to both the President and Secretary of War,” 
said Mr. Roosevelt, “and accordingly Wood and I were speedily commis¬ 
sioned as colonel and lieutenant-colonel of the First United States Vol- 
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