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The Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge
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Historical SummaryAS a forty-year old cavalry officer during the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt attracted national attention by his brilliant charge at the head of his troops up San Juan Hill, Cuba, in early July, 1898. Swashbuckling, red-blooded, democratic, courageous, conceited, Roosevelt quickly capitalized on his ride to glory. Swept into the governorship of New York that same year, he was soon "kicked upstairs" to the vice-presidency in 1900. An assassin’s bullet which found McKinley on September 6, 1901, catapulted "T.R." into the highest office in the land. In a series of letters from the trenches outside Santiago, Roosevelt described his war experiences to his good friend, Henry Cabot Lodge, then United States Senator from Massachusetts. The letters included Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt’s own description of his famous charge at the head of the Rough Riders. They reveal his outspoken nature, his high personal courage, his extreme vanity, and his delight in battle. In his letters to Lodge he complained bitterly of inefficiency and mismanagement in high quarters: "Not since the campaign of Crassus against the Parthians1 "T.R." held a high opinion of his own valor: "I commanded my regiment, I think I may say, with honor." Again: "I have held the extreme front of the fighting line; I shall do all that can be done, whatever comes." And again: "I am as strong as a bull moose, although I sleep on the firing line." Roosevelt was quite concerned about promotion: "We ought to receive the promotions rather than the men who have not been in the fight." Once more: "I think I earned my Colonelcy and medal of honor, and hope I get them; but it doesn’t make much difference, for nothing can take away the fact that for the ten great days of its life I commanded the regiment, and led it victoriously in a hard-fought battle." Here Teddy Roosevelt was being coy, for he was most anxious to win the coveted Congressional Medal of Honor: "I don’t think I should die if I caught it [yellow fever], and . . . should the worst come to the worst I am quite content to go now and to leave my children at least an honorable name (and, old man, if I do go, I do wish you would get that medal of honor for me anyhow, I should awfully like the children to have it, and I think I earned it)." In July, 1902, Roosevelt wrote his German friend, Speck yon Stern-berg, that he was "not in the least sensitive about killing any number of men if there is an adequate reason." "Roosevelt’s attitude about killing men," comments Dixon Wecter, "should not be mistaken for the ruthlessness of a Napoleon or a Hitler; read in the whole context of his life, it is essentially as naive, as remote from real mass slaughter, as a small boy’s cruelty with a beetle. But it reveals something of the ultimate flaw in Roosevelt’s hero-character, a tack of the ingredient of magnanimity." Upon his return from Cuba, Roosevelt wrote a book about his adventures. "If I was him, I’d call the book Alone in Cubia," observed Mr. Dooley. The excerpt which follows is from a letter to Lodge dated July 19, 1898. It describes the attack on Kettle Hill, "the great day of my life," when T. R. led his Rough Riders through a rain of bullets.
Key Quote"Old man, if I do go, I do wish you would get that medal of honor for me anyhow. I should awfully like the children to have it, and I think I earned it."
New York
1925
Charles Scribner’s Sons
Teddy Roosevelt’s Ride to Glory up San Juan Hill
19 July 1898
Did I tell you that I killed a Spaniard with my own hand? Probably I did. For some time, for your sins, you will hear from me a great many "grouse in the gunroom" anecdotes of this war.
For the first hour of the last battle we had a very uncomfortable time. We were lying in reserve under orders, where the bullets of the enemy reached us, and man after man was killed or wounded. I lay on the bank by Lieut. Haskell, talking with him. Finally he did not answer some questions of mine; I turned to find that he had been shot through the stomach. I gave an order to one of my men, who stood up and saluted and then fell over my knees with a bullet through his brain.
But then came the order to advance, and with it my "crowded hour"; for there followed the day of my active life. I got my men moving forward, and when the 9th regiment of regulars halted too long firing, I took my men dean through it, and their men and younger officers joined me. At the head of the two commands I rode forward (being much helped because I was the only man on horseback) and we carried the first hilt (this was the first entrenchment carried by any of our troops; the first break in the Spanish line; I was the first man in) in gallant shape and then the next and then the third. On the last I was halted and for 24 hours I was in command, on the extreme front of the line, of the fragments of six cavalry regiments, I being the highest officer left there.
1 Marcus Licinius Crassus, member with Caesar and Pompey, of the First Triumvirate of the Roman Republic, accumulated an enormous fortune by traffic in slaves, usury, and buying confiscated estates at nominal prices. Jealous of Pompey’s military renown, Crassus set out for the East to make war on the Parthians, although there had been no provocation. The greedy little tycoon was the richest man in Rome, but a military amateur. His army, weakened by mismanagement and scandalous leadership, was destroyed and he himself captured and put to death (53 B. C.).
Chicago: Theodore Roosevelt, The Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed November 23, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=SUM6L285D83JA3B.
MLA: Roosevelt, Theodore. The Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 23 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=SUM6L285D83JA3B.
Harvard: Roosevelt, T, The Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge. cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 23 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=SUM6L285D83JA3B.
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