The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (21 page)

As the Spanish-American War turned out, the navy’s poor gunnery skills did not matter, nor did Sims’s warnings. The Spanish navy proved to be no match for the Americans. The work TR had done to prepare the navy for the war and the appointments he had made when the secretary of the navy was “Long” gone contributed heavily to the Americans’ victory. The navy’s performance proved the truth in TR’s words regarding gunnery: “The shots that hit are the shots that count.”

Navy officer William S. Sims wrote several letters to navy administrators to voice his concerns about sailors’ poor marksmanship. They ignored Sims and branded him as an alarmist. Practically the only supporters he had were TR and Richard Wainwright, the executive officer of the battleship
Maine
, the catalyst for the war that blew up in Havana harbor.

Pushing for War

TR’s talent for identifying and appointing the right people for the right purpose came to the fore in the Spanish-American War. Where he could not appoint people directly, he influenced the people who could. It was due largely to his influence that Admiral George Dewey, the commander at the decisive Battle of Manila, which started the war, received his position, although there were officers senior to him. It was TR who ordered Dewey to sail for Manila in the Philippines to take up a position to fight the Spanish navy. He sent the order when Long was out of the office!

Ten days after the
Maine
sank, Long took a day off to relieve the stress of being on a war footing. He told TR emphatically not to do anything that would impact the navy—or the country. That was like telling him not to attack graft wherever he encountered it.

TR began at once to move ships, people, ammunition, and materiel into place for the war he was sure was about to begin. In effect, he promoted himself to acting, rather than assistant, secretary of the navy.

He sent a cablegram to Dewey on February 25, 1898, with specific instructions:

Dewey, Hong Kong: Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders
.

—ROOSEVELT
.

TR knew that
Monocacy
was unfit for war or anything else. The thirty-two-year-old ship had been built during the Civil War. It was emblematic of the mixed collection of “something old, something new, something borrowed” fleet the navy maintained. And the
Olympia
had been ordered to return to the United States. Based on TR’s orders, it stayed in the Pacific and led the U.S. armada in the Battle of Manila Bay.

Long was not pleased with Roosevelt, which was nothing new. He considered TR a “bull in a china shop.” But he seldom did anything to stop his assistant’s rash behavior. According to the papers Long wrote after he left office, despite occasional differences of opinion, the conservative small-navy secretary got on well with the impetuous large-navy assistant and was sorry to see him go off to war in 1898. Off he went, though, as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.

From Navy to Army

Even though TR had put a lot of time and effort into preparing the navy for war, he could not participate with it since he was not a member. He was itching to get involved actively in the fighting. On May 10, 1898, he resigned from the navy and “joined” the army, even though he had no military experience to speak of.

TR had a serious desire to test his mettle in war—any war. He believed that young men—and he considered himself one of them, even though he was forty years old at the time—should always be prepared to serve their country as a way to prove their strength and courage. He gave himself the opportunity to follow his own advice.

According to TR, “The young men of the country should realize that it is the duty of every one of them to prepare himself so that in time of need he may speedily become an efficient soldier—a duty now generally forgotten, but which should be recognized as one of the vitally essential parts of every man’s training.”

At the onset of the Spanish-American War, the army was in worse shape than the navy. It did not have enough troops to conduct a skirmish, let alone a war. Consequently, President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers to supplement the army. More than a million men responded—including TR, as a recruiter and a soldier.

One of TR’s considerable strengths was his ability to organize. That asset came to the fore as he and his old friend Leonard Wood raised a regiment of volunteer cavalry called the “Rough Riders.” Their official name was the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry.

The regiment consisted of a unique group of rugged Westerners, most of them from the Southwest territories of the United States. TR became their leader. “Colonel” Roosevelt went off to war. Surprisingly, Long wondered if his former assistant had lost his sanity.

Portrait of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, 1898

Long gave credit where credit was due. In his journal, he admitted that TR “has been of great use; a man of unbounded energy and force, and thoroughly honest, which is the main thing.” But, he opined, “He has lost his head in this unutterable folly of deserting the post where he is of most service and running off to ride a horse and, probably, brush mosquitoes from his neck on the Florida sands.”

TR pulled a few strings to get his commission. One of his champions was Secretary of War Russell A. Alger. Alger, a Civil War veteran, was fond of TR and a patient of Leonard Wood. He offered TR command of one of the National Volunteer Cavalry regiments being raised. Later, Alger would try to block TR’s Medal of Honor recommendation.

In that last statement, he was wrong. TR went a lot farther than Florida, geographically and accomplishment wise.

The secretary also provided insight into TR’s character. “His heart is right, and he means well, but it is one of those cases of aberration—desertion—vain glory; of which he is utterly unaware. He thinks he is following his highest ideal, whereas, in fact, as without exception, he is acting like a fool.”

The most significant comment Long included was a prediction that came true. “And yet,” he wrote, “how absurd all this will sound if, by some turn of fortune, he should accomplish some great thing and strike a very high mark.” TR did “accomplish some great thing,” but that did not diminish the acumen Long displayed in his remarks.

Leading the Rough Riders

Roosevelt was in charge of a group of approximately 1,000 Rough Riders, of whom he knew little, since Wood had recruited most of them. He suspected that they were good horsemen because most of them came from the Southwest. As he wrote about them later, “In all the world there could be no better material for soldiers than that afforded by these grim hunters of the mountains, these wild rough riders of the plains.”

Beyond the fact that they were sturdy men, TR did not know much of anything about their training, when—or if—they would be called to action, or how the army planned to utilize them. He learned that the army did not have a clue, either.

TR’s problem was not recruiting men. He wrote, “Within a day or two after it was announced that we were to raise the regiment, we were literally deluged with applications from every quarter of the Union. Without the slightest trouble, so far as men went, we could have raised a brigade or even a division. The difficulty lay in arming, equipping, mounting, and disciplining the men we selected.”

TR recalled that while he was still assistant secretary of the navy he had tried to find out what the Department of War’s strategy for fighting the war was. He said tersely, “They had no plans. Even during the final months before the outbreak of hostilities very little was done in the way of efficient preparation.” Nevertheless, he and Wood began training their troops.

The Rough Riders were a diverse group. The 1,000 members were ranchers, cowboys, gamblers, and a few outlaws. The Easterners in the unit were primarily college dropouts and young men from the “upper crust” of society who were looking for a little adventure in their lives. They shared one basic asset: all of them were ready to fight.