the General gave it to the correspondent of the Associated Press
who was present. A few hours later it had been telegraphed to the
United States. Shafter called a council of war of the division
and brigade commanders, which he invited Roosevelt to attend,
although his rank as Colonel did not entitle him to take part.
When the Generals heard that the Army was to be kept in Cuba all
summer and sent up into the hills, they agreed that Roosevelt's
protest must be supported, and they drew up the famous "Round
Robin" in which they repeated Roosevelt's warnings. Neither
President McKinley nor the War Department could be deaf to such a
statement as this: "This army must be moved at once or perish. As
the army can be safely moved now, the persons responsible for
preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary
loss of many thousands of lives."

This letter also was immediately published at home, and outcries
of horror and indignation went up. A few sticklers for military
etiquette professed to be astonished that any officer should be
guilty of the insubordination which these letters implied, and,
of course, the blame fell on Roosevelt. The truth is that
Shafter, dismayed at the condition of the Fifth Army, and at his
own inability to make the Government understand the frightful
doom which was impending, deliberately chose Roosevelt to commit
the insubordination; for, as he was a volunteer officer, soon to
be discharged, the act could not harm his future, whereas the
regular officers were not likely to be popular with the War
Department after they had called the attention of the world to
its maleficent incompetence.

Washington heard the shot fired by the Colonel of the Rough