Riders, but shall touch only on those matters which refer to
Roosevelt himself. Wood, having been promoted to
Brigadier-General, in command of a larger unit, Theodore became
Colonel of the regiment. On July 1 and 2 he commanded the Rough
Riders in their attack on and capture of San Juan Hill, in
connection with some colored troops. In this engagement, their
nearest approach to a battle, the Rough Riders, who had less than
five hundred men in action, lost eighty-nine in killed and
wounded. Then followed a dreary life in the trenches until
Santiago surrendered; and then a still more terrible experience
while they waited for Spain to give up the war. Under a killing
tropical sun, receiving irregular and often damaged food, without
tent or other protection from the heat or from the rain, the
Rough Riders endured for weeks the ravages of fever, climate, and
privation. To realize that their sufferings were directly owing
to the blunders and incompetence of the War Department at home,
brought no consolation, for the soldiers could see no reason why
the Department should not go on blundering indefinitely. One of
the Rough Riders told me that, when stricken with fever, he lay
for days on the beach, and that anchored within the distance a
tennis-ball could be thrown was a steamer loaded with medicines,
but that no orders were given to bring them ashore!

The Rough Riders were hard hit by disease, but not harder than
the other regiments in the Army. Every one of their officers,
except the Colonel and another, had yellow fever, and at one time
more than half of the regiment was sick. A terrible depression
weighed them down. They almost despaired, not only of being
relieved, but of living. To face the entire Spanish Army would
have been a great joy, compared with this sinking, melting away,