Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography — Ch 07-The War of America the Unready, pt 3

At San Antonio we entrained for Tampa.

In various sociological books by authors of Continental Europe, there are jeremiads as to the way in which service in the great European armies, with their minute and machine-like efficiency and regularity, tends to dwarf the capacity for individual initiative among the officers and men.

There is no such danger for any officer or man of a volunteer organization in America when our country, with playful light-heartedness, has pranced into war without making any preparation for it.

I know no larger or finer field for the display of an advanced individualism than that which opened before us as we went from San Antonio to Tampa, camped there, and embarked on a transport for Cuba.

Nobody ever had any definite information to give us, and whatever information we unearthed on our own account was usually wrong.

Each of us had to show an alert and not overscrupulous self-reliance in order to obtain food for his men, provender for his horses, or transportation of any kind for any object.

One lesson early impressed on me was that if I wanted anything to eat it was wise to carry it with me; and if any new war should arise, I would earnestly advise the men of every volunteer organization always to proceed upon the belief that their supplies will not turn up, and to take every opportunity of getting food for themselves.

Tampa was a scene of the wildest confusion.

There were miles of tracks loaded with cars of the contents of which nobody seemed to have any definite knowledge.

General Miles, who was supposed to have supervision over everything, and General Shafter, who had charge of the expedition, were both there.

But, thanks to the fact that nobody had had any experience in handling even such a small force as ours--about 17,000 men--there was no semblance of order.

Wood and I were bound that we should not be left behind when the expedition started.

When we were finally informed that it was to leave next morning, we were ordered to go to a certain track to meet a train.

We went to the track, but the train never came.

Then we were sent to another track to meet another train.

Again it never came.

However, we found a coal train, of which we took possession, and the conductor, partly under duress and partly in a spirit of friendly helpfulness, took us down to the quay.

All kinds of other organizations, infantry and cavalry, regular and volunteer, were arriving at the quay and wandering around it, and there was no place where we could get any specific information as to what transport we were to have.

Finally Wood was told to "get any ship you can get which is not already assigned."

He borrowed without leave a small motor boat, and commandeered the transport Yucatan.

When asked by the captain what his authority was, he reported that he was acting "by orders of General Shafter," and directed the ship to be brought to the dock.

He had already sent me word to be ready, as soon as the ship touched the pier, to put the regiment aboard her.

I found that she had already been assigned to a regular regiment, and to another volunteer regiment, and as it was evident that not more than half of the men assigned to her could possibly get on, I was determined that we should not be among the men left off.

The volunteer regiment offered a comparatively easy problem.

I simply marched my men past them to the allotted place and held the gangway.

With the regulars I had to be a little more diplomatic, because their commander, a lieutenant-colonel, was my superior in rank, and also doubtless knew his rights.

He sent word to me to make way, to draw my regiment off to one side, and let his take possession of the gangway.

I could see the transport coming in, and could dimly make out Wood's figure thereon.

Accordingly I played for time.

I sent respectful requests through his officers to the commander of the regulars, entered into parleys, and made protestations, until the transport got near enough so that by yelling at the top of my voice I was able to get into a--highly constructive--communication with Wood.

What he was saying I had no idea, but he was evidently speaking, and on my own responsibility I translated it into directions to hold the gangway, and so informed the regulars that I was under the orders of my superior and of a ranking officer, and--to my great regret, etc. , etc. --could not give way as they desired.

As soon as the transport was fast we put our men aboard at the double.

Half of the regular regiment got on, and the other half and the other volunteer regiment went somewhere else.

We were kept several days on the transport, which was jammed with men, so that it was hard to move about on the deck.

Then the fleet got under way, and we steamed slowly down to Santiago.

Here we disembarked, higgledy-piggledy, just as we had embarked.

Different parts of different outfits were jumbled together, and it was no light labor afterwards to assemble the various batteries.

For instance, one transport had guns, and another the locks for the guns; the two not getting together for several days after one of them had been landed.

Soldiers went here, provisions there; and who got ashore first largely depended upon individual activity.

Fortunately for us, my former naval aide, when I had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Lieutenant-Commander Sharp, a first-class fellow, was there in command of a little ship to which I had succeeded in getting him appointed before I left the Navy Department.

He gave us a black pilot, who took our transport right in shore, the others following like a flock of sheep; and we disembarked with our rifles, ammunition belts, and not much else.

In theory it was out of our turn, but if we had not disembarked then, Heaven only knows when our turn would have come, and we did not intend to be out of the fighting if we could help it.

I carried some food in my pockets, and a light waterproof coat, which was my sole camp equipment for the next two or three days.

Twenty-four hours after getting ashore we marched from Daiquiri, where we had landed, to Siboney, also on the coast, reaching it during a terrific downpour of rain.

When this was over, we built a fire, dried our clothes, and ate whatever we had brought with us.

We were brigaded with the First and Tenth Regular Cavalry, under Brigadier-General Sam Young.

He was a fine type of the American regular.

Like General Chaffee, another of the same type, he had entered the army in the Civil War as a private.

Later, when I was President, it was my good fortune to make each of them in succession Lieutenant-General of the army of the United States.

When General Young retired and General Chaffee was to take his place, the former sent to the latter his three stars to wear on his first official presentation, with a note that they were from "Private Young to Private Chaffee."

The two fine old fellows had served in the ranks, one in the cavalry, one in the infantry, in their golden youth, in the days of the great war nearly half a century before; each had grown gray in a lifetime of honorable service under the flag, and each closed his active career in command of the army.

General Young was one of the few men who had given and taken wounds with the saber.

He was an old friend of mine, and when in Washington before starting for the front he told me that if we got in his brigade he would put us into the fighting all right.

He kept his word.

General Young had actively superintended getting his two regular regiments, or at least a squadron of each, off the transports, and late that night he sent us word that he had received permission to move at dawn and strike the Spanish advance position.

He directed us to move along a ridge trail with our two squadrons (one squadron having been left at Tampa), while with the two squadrons of regulars, one of the First and one of the Tenth, under his personal supervision, he marched up the valley trail.

Accordingly Wood took us along the hill trail early next morning, till we struck the Spaniards, and began our fight just as the regulars began the fight in the valley trail.

It was a mountainous country covered with thick jungle, a most confusing country, and I had an awful time trying to get into the fight and trying to do what was right when in it; and all the while I was thinking that I was the only man who did not know what I was about, and that all the others did--whereas, as I found out later, pretty much everybody else was as much in the dark as I was.

There was no surprise; we struck the Spaniards exactly where we had expected; then Wood halted us and put us into the fight deliberately and in order.

He ordered us to deploy alternately by troops to the right and left of the trail, giving our senior major, Brodie, a West Pointer and as good a soldier as ever wore a uniform, the left wing, while I took the right wing.

I was told if possible to connect with the regulars who were on the right.

In theory this was excellent, but as the jungle was very dense the first troop that deployed to the right vanished forthwith, and I never saw it again until the fight was over--having a frightful feeling meanwhile that I might be court-martialed for losing it.

The next troop deployed to the left under Brodie.

Then the third came along, and I started to deploy it to the right as before.

By the time the first platoon had gotten into the jungle I realized that it likewise would disappear unless I kept hold of it.

I managed to keep possession of the last platoon.

One learns fast in a fight, and I marched this platoon and my next two troops in column through the jungle without any attempt to deploy until we got on the firing line.

This sounds simple.

But it was not.

I did not know when I had gotten on the firing line!

I could hear a good deal of firing, some over to my right at a good distance, and the rest to the left and ahead.

I pushed on, expecting to strike the enemy somewhere between.

Soon we came to the brink of a deep valley.

There was a good deal of cracking of rifles way off in front of us, but as they used smokeless powder we had no idea as to exactly where they were, or who they were shooting at.

Then it dawned on us that we were the target.

The bullets began to come overhead, making a sound like the ripping of a silk dress, with sometimes a kind of pop; a few of my men fell, and I deployed the rest, making them lie down and get behind trees.

Richard Harding Davis was with us, and as we scanned the landscape with our glasses it was he who first pointed out to us some Spaniards in a trench some three-quarters of a mile off.

It was difficult to make them out.

There were not many of them.

However, we finally did make them out, and we could see their conical hats, for the trench was a poor one.

We advanced, firing at them, and drove them off.

What to do then I had not an idea.

The country in front fell away into a very difficult jungle-filled valley.

There was nothing but jungle all around, and if I advanced I was afraid I might get out of touch with everybody and not be going in the right direction.

Moreover, as far as I could see, there was now nobody in front who was shooting at us, although some of the men on my left insisted that our own men had fired into us--an allegation which I soon found was almost always made in such a fight, and which in this case was not true.

At this moment some of the regulars appeared across the ravine on our right.

The first thing they did was to fire a volley at us, but one of our first sergeants went up a tree and waved a guidon at them and they stopped.

Firing was still going on to our left, however, and I was never more puzzled to know what to do.

I did not wish to take my men out of their position without orders, for fear that I might thereby be leaving a gap if there was a Spanish force which meditated an offensive return.

On the other hand, it did not seem to me that I had been doing enough fighting to justify my existence, and there was obviously fighting going on to the left.

I

remember that I kept thinking of the refrain of the fox-hunting song, "Here's to every friend who struggled to the end"; in the hunting field I had always acted on this theory, and, no matter how discouraging appearances might be, had never stopped trying to get in at the death until the hunt was actually over; and now that there was work, and not play, on hand, I intended to struggle as hard as I knew how not to be left out of any fighting into which I could, with any possible propriety, get.

So I left my men where they were and started off at a trot toward where the firing was, with a couple of orderlies to send back for the men in case that proved advisable.

Like most tyros, I was wearing my sword, which in thick jungle now and then got between my legs--from that day on it always went corded in the baggage.

I struck the trail, and began to pass occasional dead men.

Pretty soon I reached Wood and found, much to my pleasure, that I had done the right thing, for as I came up word was brought to him that Brodie had been shot, and he at once sent me to take charge of the left wing.

It was more open country here, and at least I was able to get a glimpse of my own men and exercise some control over them.

There was much firing going on, but for the life of me I could not see any Spaniards, and neither could any one else.

Finally we made up our minds that they were shooting at us from a set of red-tiled ranch buildings a good way in front, and these I assaulted, finally charging them.

Before we came anywhere near, the Spaniards, who, as it proved, really were inside and around them, abandoned them, leaving a few dead men.

By the time I had taken possession of these buildings all firing had ceased everywhere.

I had not the faintest idea what had happened: whether the fight was over; or whether this was merely a lull in the fight; or where the Spaniards were; or whether we might be attacked again; or whether we ought ourselves to attack somebody somewhere else.

I got my men in order and sent out small parties to explore the ground in front, who returned without finding any foe.

(By this time, as a matter of fact, the Spaniards were in full retreat.

) Meanwhile I was extending my line so as to get into touch with our people on the right.

Word was brought to me that Wood had been shot--which fortunately proved not to be true--and as, if this were so, it meant that I must take charge of the regiment, I moved over personally to inquire.

Soon I learned that he was all right, that the Spaniards had retreated along the main road, and that Colonel Wood and two or three other officers were a short distance away.

Before I reached them I encountered a captain of the Ninth Cavalry, very glum because his troopers had not been up in time to take part in the fight, and he congratulated me--with visible effort!

--upon my share in our first victory.

I thanked him cordially, not confiding in him that till that moment I myself knew exceeding little about the victory; and proceeded to where Generals Wheeler, Lawton, and Chaffee, who had just come up, in company with Wood, were seated on a bank.

They expressed appreciation of the way that I had handled my troops, first on the right wing and then on the left!

As I was quite prepared to find I had committed some awful sin, I did my best to accept this in a nonchalant manner, and not to look as relieved as I felt.

As throughout the morning I had preserved a specious aspect of wisdom, and had commanded first one and then the other wing, the fight was really a capital thing for me, for practically all the men had served under my actual command, and thenceforth felt an enthusiastic belief that I would lead them aright.

It was a week after this skirmish before the army made the advance on Santiago.

Just before this occurred General Young was stricken down with fever.

General Wheeler, who had commanded the Cavalry Division, was put in general charge of the left wing of the army, which fought before the city itself.

Brigadier-General Sam Sumner, an excellent officer, who had the second cavalry brigade, took command of the cavalry division, and Wood took command of our brigade, while, to my intense delight, I got my regiment.

I therefore had command of the regiment before the stiffest fighting occurred.

Later, when Wood was put in command in Santiago, I became the brigade commander.

Late in the evening we camped at El Poso.

There were two regular officers, the brigade commander's aides, Lieutenants A. L.

Mills and W. E.

Shipp, who were camped by our regiment.

Each of my men had food in his haversack, but I had none, and I would have gone supperless to bed if Mills and Shipp had not given me out of their scanty stores a big sandwich, which I shared with my orderly, who also had nothing.

Next morning my body servant Marshall, an ex-soldier of the Ninth (Colored) Cavalry, a fine and faithful fellow, had turned up and I was able in my turn to ask Mills and Shipp, who had eaten all their food the preceding evening, to take breakfast with me.

A few hours later gallant Shipp was dead, and Mills, an exceptionally able officer, had been shot through the head from side to side, just back of the eyes; yet he lived, although one eye was blinded, and before I left the Presidency I gave him his commission as Brigadier-General.

Early in the morning our artillery began firing from the hill-crest immediately in front of where our men were camped.

Several of the regiment were killed and wounded by the shrapnel of the return fire of the Spaniards.

One of the shrapnel bullets fell on my wrist and raised a bump as big as a hickory nut, but did not even break the skin.

Then we were marched down from the hill on a muddy road through thick jungle towards Santiago.

The heat was great, and we strolled into the fight with no definite idea on the part of any one as to what we were to do or what would happen.

There was no plan that our left wing was to make a serious fight that day; and as there were no plans, it was naturally exceedingly hard to get orders, and each of us had to act largely on his own responsibility.

Lawton's infantry division attacked the little village of El Caney, some miles to the right.

Kent's infantry division and Sumner's dismounted cavalry division were supposed to detain the Spanish army in Santiago until Lawton had captured El Caney.

Spanish towns and villages, however, with their massive buildings, are natural fortifications, as the French found in the Peninsular War, and as both the French and our people found in Mexico.

The Spanish troops in El Caney fought very bravely, as did the Spanish troops in front of us, and it was late in the afternoon before Lawton accomplished his task.

Meanwhile we of the left wing had by degrees become involved in a fight which toward the end became not even a colonel's fight, but a squad leader's fight.

The cavalry division was put at the head of the line.

We were told to march forward, cross a little river in front, and then, turning to the right, march up alongside the stream until we connected with Lawton.

Incidentally, this movement would not have brought us into touch with Lawton in any event.

But we speedily had to abandon any thought of carrying it out.

The maneuver brought us within fair range of the Spanish intrenchments along the line of hills which we called the San Juan Hills, because on one of them was the San Juan blockhouse.

On that day my regiment had the lead of the second brigade, and we marched down the trail following in trace behind the first brigade.

Apparently the Spaniards could not make up their minds what to do as the three regular regiments of the first brigade crossed and defiled along the other bank of the stream, but when our regiment was crossing they began to fire at us.

Under this flank fire it soon became impossible to continue the march.

The first brigade halted, deployed, and finally began to fire back.

Then our brigade was halted.

From time to time some of our men would fall, and I sent repeated word to the rear to try to get authority to attack the hills in front.

Finally General Sumner, who was fighting the division in fine shape, sent word to advance.

The word was brought to me by Mills, who said that my orders were to support the regulars in the assault on the hills, and that my objective would be the red-tiled ranch-house in front, on a hill which we afterwards christened Kettle Hill.

I mention Mills saying this because it was exactly the kind of definite order the giving of which does so much to insure success in a fight, as it prevents all obscurity as to what is to be done.

The order to attack did not reach the first brigade until after we ourselves reached it, so that at first there was doubt on the part of their officers whether they were at liberty to join in the advance.

I had not enjoyed the Guasimas fight at all, because I had been so uncertain as to what I ought to do.

But the San Juan fight was entirely different.

The Spaniards had a hard position to attack, it is true, but we could see them, and I knew exactly how to proceed.

I kept on horseback, merely because I found it difficult to convey orders along the line, as the men were lying down; and it is always hard to get men to start when they cannot see whether their comrades are also going.

So I rode up and down the lines, keeping them straightened out, and gradually worked through line after line until I found myself at the head of the regiment.

By the time I had reached the lines of the regulars of the first brigade I had come to the conclusion that it was silly to stay in the valley firing at the hills, because that was really where we were most exposed, and that the thing to do was to try to rush the intrenchments.

Where I struck the regulars there was no one of superior rank to mine, and after asking why they did not charge, and being answered that they had no orders, I said I would give the order.

There was naturally a little reluctance shown by the elderly officer in command to accept my order, so I said, "Then let my men through, sir," and I marched through, followed by my grinning men.

The younger officers and the enlisted men of the regulars jumped up and joined us.

I waved my hat, and we went up the hill with a rush.

Having taken it, we looked across at the Spaniards in the trenches under the San Juan blockhouse to our left, which Hawkins's brigade was assaulting.

I ordered our men to open fire on the Spaniards in the trenches.

Memory plays funny tricks in such a fight, where things happen quickly, and all kinds of mental images succeed one another in a detached kind of way, while the work goes on.

As I gave the order in question there slipped through my mind Mahan's account of Nelson's orders that each ship as it sailed forward, if it saw another ship engaged with an enemy's ship, should rake the latter as it passed.

When Hawkins's soldiers captured the blockhouse, I, very much elated, ordered a charge on my own hook to a line of hills still farther on.

Hardly anybody heard this order, however; only four men started with me, three of whom were shot.

I gave one of them, who was only wounded, my canteen of water, and ran back, much irritated that I had not been followed--which was quite unjustifiable, because I found that nobody had heard my orders.

General Sumner had come up by this time, and I asked his permission to lead the charge.

He ordered me to do so, and this time away we went, and stormed the Spanish intrenchments.

There was some close fighting, and we took a few prisoners.

We also captured the Spanish provisions, and ate them that night with great relish.

One of the items was salted flying-fish, by the way.

There were also bottles of wine, and jugs of fiery spirit, and as soon as possible I had these broken, although not before one or two of my men had taken too much liquor.

Lieutenant Howze, of the regulars, an aide of General Sumner's, brought me an order to halt where I was; he could not make up his mind to return until he had spent an hour or two with us under fire.

The Spaniards attempted a counter-attack in the middle of the afternoon, but were driven back without effort, our men laughing and cheering as they rose to fire; because hitherto they had been assaulting breastworks, or lying still under artillery fire, and they were glad to get a chance to shoot at the Spaniards in the open.

We lay on our arms that night and as we were drenched with sweat, and had no blankets save a few we took from the dead Spaniards, we found even the tropic night chilly before morning came.

During the afternoon's fighting, while I was the highest officer at our immediate part of the front, Captains Boughton and Morton of the regular cavalry, two as fine officers as any man could wish to have beside him in battle, came along the firing line to tell me that they had heard a rumor that we might fall back, and that they wished to record their emphatic protest against any such course.

I did not believe there was any truth in the rumor, for the Spaniards were utterly incapable of any effective counter-attack.

However, late in the evening, after the fight, General Wheeler visited us at the front, and he told me to keep myself in readiness, as at any moment it might be decided to fall back.

Jack Greenway was beside me when General Wheeler was speaking.

I answered, "Well, General, I really don't know whether we would obey an order to fall back.

We can take that city by a rush, and if we have to move out of here at all I should be inclined to make the rush in the right direction."

Greenway nodded an eager assent.

The old General, after a moment's pause, expressed his hearty agreement, and said that he would see that there was no falling back.

He had been very sick for a couple of days, but, sick as he was, he managed to get into the fight.

He was a gamecock if ever there was one, but he was in very bad physical shape on the day of the fight.

If there had been any one in high command to supervise and press the attack that afternoon, we would have gone right into Santiago.

In my part of the line the advance was halted only because we received orders not to move forward, but to stay on the crest of the captured hill and hold it.

We are always told that three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage is the most desirable kind.

Well, my men and the regulars of the cavalry had just that brand of courage.

At about three o'clock on the morning after the first fight, shooting began in our front and there was an alarm of a Spanish advance.

I was never more pleased than to see the way in which the hungry, tired, shabby men all jumped up and ran forward to the hill-crest, so as to be ready for the attack; which, however, did not come.

As soon as the sun rose the Spaniards again opened upon us with artillery.

A shell burst between Dave Goodrich and myself, blacking us with powder, and killing and wounding several of the men immediately behind us.

Next day the fight turned into a siege; there were some stirring incidents; but for the most part it was trench work.

A fortnight later Santiago surrendered.

Wood won his brigadier-generalship by the capital way in which he handled his brigade in the fight, and in the following siege.

He was put in command of the captured city; and in a few days I succeeded to the command of the brigade.