Rough Riders | Page 3

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. Hundreds of regiments were being
called into existence by the National Government, and each regiment
was sure to have innumerable wants to be satisfied. To a man who
knew the ground as Wood did, and who was entirely aware of our
national unpreparedness, it was evident that the ordnance and
quartermaster's bureaus could not meet, for some time to come,
one-tenth of the demands that would be made upon them; and it was
all-important to get in first with our demands. Thanks to his knowledge
of the situation and promptness, we immediately put in our requisitions
for the articles indispensable for the equipment of the regiment; and
then, by ceaseless worrying of excellent bureaucrats, who had no idea
how to do things quickly or how to meet an emergency, we succeeded
in getting our rifles, cartridges, revolvers, clothing, shelter-tents, and
horse gear just in time to enable us to go on the Santiago expedition.
Some of the State troops, who were already organized as National
Guards, were, of course, ready, after a fashion, when the war broke out;
but no other regiment which had our work to do was able to do it in
anything like as quick time, and therefore no other volunteer regiment

saw anything like the fighting which we did.
Wood thoroughly realized what the Ordnance Department failed to
realize, namely, the inestimable advantage of smokeless powder; and,
moreover, he was bent upon our having the weapons of the regulars, for
this meant that we would be brigaded with them, and it was evident that
they would do the bulk of the fighting if the war were short.
Accordingly, by acting with the utmost vigor and promptness, he
succeeded in getting our regiment armed with the Krag-Jorgensen
carbine used by the regular cavalry.
It was impossible to take any of the numerous companies which were
proffered to us from the various States. The only organized bodies we
were at liberty to accept were those from the four Territories. But
owing to the fact that the number of men originally allotted to us, 780,
was speedily raised to 1,000, we were given a chance to accept quite a
number of eager volunteers who did not come from the Territories, but
who possessed precisely the same temper that distinguished our
Southwestern recruits, and whose presence materially benefited the
regiment.
We drew recruits from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and many another
college; from clubs like the Somerset, of Boston, and Knickerbocker,
of New York; and from among the men who belonged neither to club
nor to college, but in whose veins the blood stirred with the same
impulse which once sent the Vikings over sea. Four of the policemen
who had served under me, while I was President of the New York
Police Board, insisted on coming--two of them to die, the other two to
return unhurt after honorable and dangerous service. It seemed to me
that almost every friend I had in every State had some one acquaintance
who was bound to go with the Rough Riders, and for whom I had to
make a place. Thomas Nelson Page, General Fitzhugh Lee,
Congressman Odell, of New York, Senator Morgan; for each of these,
and for many others, I eventually consented to accept some one or two
recruits, of course only after a most rigid examination into their
physical capacity, and after they had shown that they knew how to ride
and shoot. I may add that in no case was I disappointed in the men thus
taken.
Harvard being my own college, I had such a swarm of applications
from it that I could not take one in ten. What particularly pleased me,

not only in the Harvard but the Yale and Princeton men, and, indeed, in
these recruits from the older States generally, was that they did not ask
for commissions. With hardly an exception they entered upon their
duties as troopers in the spirit which they held to the end, merely
endeavoring to show that no work could be too hard, too disagreeable,
or too dangerous for them to perform, and neither asking nor receiving
any reward in the way of promotion or consideration. The Harvard
contingent was practically raised by Guy Murchie, of Maine. He saw
all the fighting and did his duty with the utmost gallantry, and then left
the service as he had entered it, a trooper, entirely satisfied to have
done his duty--and no man did it better. So it was with Dudley Dean,
perhaps the