Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
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