that. But that was not the chief reason, or even an important
one, in shaping his decision. He went to San Antonio in May, and
worked without respite in learning the rudiments of war and in
teaching them to his motley volunteers, who were already called
by the public, and will be known in history, as the "Rough
Riders." He felt relieved when "Teddy's Terrors," one of the
nicknames proposed, did not stick to them. At the end of the
month the regiment proceeded to Tampa, Florida, whence part of it
sailed for Cuba on the transport Yucatan. It sufficiently
indicates the state of chaos which then reigned in our Army
preparations, that half the regiment and all the horses and mules
were left behind. Arrived in Cuba,, the first troops, accustomed
only to the saddle, had to hobble along as best they could, on
foot, so that some wag rechristened them " Wood's Weary Walkers."
The rest of the regiment, with the mounts, came a little later,
and at Las Guasimas they had their first skirmish with the
Spaniards. Eight of them were killed, and they were buried in one
grave. Afterward, in writing the history of the Rough Riders,
Roosevelt said: "There could be no more honorable burial than
that of these men in a common grave--Indian and cowboy, miner,
packer, and college athlete--the man of unknown ancestry from the
lonely Western plains, and the man who carried on his watch the
crests of the Stuyvesants and the Fishes, one in the way they had
met death, just as during life they had been one in their daring
and their loyalty." *

* The Rough Riders, 120.


I shall not attempt to follow in detail the story of the Rough