Episode 2 - Rough Riders

“Overflowing with intelligently packaged information about Roosevelt and his regiment, massaged into an appealing action-narrative style as instructive alike to enthusiast and newcomer as it is enjoyable to read.” — Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Buy Mark's book:

Rough Riders: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge Up San Juan Hill

https://amzn.to/3SP1mz6

Read Colonel Roosevelt's war memoir online:

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Rough Riders. New York: Collier, 1899., https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000466566

Bronco Buster

"The Rough Riders...wished to present the colonel with 'a very slight token of the admiration, love and esteem in which you are held by the officers and men of your regiment.'...a marvelous bronze sculpture of a cowboy on a rearing horse...The Bronco Buster by Frederic Remington...The men had all chipped in to purchase it." (pg 243, Rough Riders)

"'To have such a gift come from this peculiarly American regiment touches me more than I can say. This is something I shall hand down to my children, and I shall value it even more than I do the weapons I carried through the campaign.'...Roosevelt asked the men to line up and file by him so could shake each of their hands. He spoke briefly to each trooper, calling most of them by their first names." (pg 244, Rough Riders)

* pictured on the left: Col. Roosevelt shaking hands with his men - "The Bronco Buster" can be seen on the table (Theodore Roosevelt Collection Roosevelt, Harvard University, R560.3.EL61-098a); "The Bronco Buster" bronze by Frederic Remington at Camp Wikoff, Montauk, NY (Theodore Roosevelt Collection Roosevelt, Harvard University, R560.3.EL61-099); Trophy room at Sagamore Hill, summer home of President Theodore Roosevelt, with bison heads over the mantle. New York Oyster Bay Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, ca. 1910. Aug. 23. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2006676023/. Note bronco Buster on the center table

Captured Spanish Bugle

"Then they went straight up the steep, open hillside toward the rifle pits and fortified house on the ridge. 'It was the grandest sight I ever saw,' wrote Second Lieutenant John Greenway to his mother....The first Americans to reach the trenches were Greenway, Roger Fitch, and John Beissel (all Troop G men)...." (pg 170, Rough Riders)

"I can say, Mother, I was the first Rough Rider to reach the summit of this hill...I along with two men from my platoon, captured the first prisoner capt'd by the Regt. I have his trumpet which I took from him and will send [it to] you." (letter excerpt from Lt Greenway to his mother, July 13, 1898)

Inscription reads: "Taken from Spanish Prisoner Captured by Lt. John C. Greenway Roosevelt's Rough Riders San Juan Hill. July 1st 1898.

* Photos courtesy of Michael Rebman, Museum Curator/Manager
City of Las Vegas Museum and Rough Rider Memorial Collection, Las Vegas, New Mexico