54 
NAVAL SECRETARY AND ROUGH RIDER 
grade of captain in its ranks. He might have been the colonel of the 
new regiment if he had chosen, but he felt that in actual war a man 
who had seen service in the field was needed, and he selected his friend, 
Colonel Leonard Wood, of the Regular Army, to command, contenting 
himself with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. 
How to get to Cuba was the first important question that arose. 
Of the enlisted men only a small proportion could go on the projected 
expedition to Santiago. Mounted men were debarred and the horses 
had to be left behind, one squadron remaining to take care of them. 
The Rough Riders were among the last of the regiments that received 
permission to go, and might have been left behind but for “Teddy” 
Roosevelt’s insistence. Then, when orders came to move to Tampa, 
transportation was refused. In his usual mode of cutting the Gordian 
knot, he seized a train, jumped aboard the engine, and demanded that 
it should move. The train moved. 
Port reached, he did not wait for an official assignment to a 
transport, but put his men without hesitation on board the nearest 
vessel. Much the same thing happened when the landing place in 
Cuba was reached. Following the same bold tactics, he did not wait 
for orders to land his men, but got them ashore among the first, and 
on the night of the landing began to march to the front. He even 
passed General Lawton, who was holding the advance guard position 
under orders from General Shatter. 
In all these active movements we hear the name of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Roosevelt, not that of Colonel Wood. The two men, however, 
were of much the same calibre and were intimate friends. They 
worked together as one man. Later on Colonel Wood was promoted 
to the rank of general and his subordinate took the post of colonel. 
Throughout he was identified with the Rough Riders and they with 
him. 
Readers of the war know what followed, how the regiment passed 
the advance outpost—without orders, it is said—and at daylight the 
next morning encountered the Spaniards at Las Guasimas and began 
the first fight of the short war. When General Shafter received the 
news of this fight he was not pleased, for he was told that the Amer¬ 
icans had been cut to pieces. He swore roundly and declared that He 
