arranged for three regiments of volunteer cavalry to be raised
among the men in the Rockies and on the Great Plains who knew how
to ride and shoot. Here Roosevelt saw his chance. He knew these
men and longed to go to war in their company.

The Secretary of War offered to make him Colonel of one of these
regiments. It is worth while to notice what his reply was. He knew
how to manage a horse and a rifle, he had lived in the open and
could take care of himself in the field. He had had three years in
the National Guard in New York, rising to the rank of Captain.
Many men in the Civil War without one half of his experience and
knowledge, gayly accepted Brigadier-Generalships. Also, in the
Spanish War, another public man, Mr. William J. Bryan, allowed
himself to be made a Colonel, and took full command of a regiment,
without one day's military experience. Yet Roosevelt declined the
offer of a Colonel's commission and asked to be made Lieutenant-
Colonel, with Leonard Wood, of the regular Army as his Colonel.

When you hear or read that Roosevelt was a conceited man, always
pushing himself forward, it may be well to ask if that is the way
a conceited man would have acted.

Colonel Wood was an army surgeon, who had been a fighting officer
in the campaign against the Apaches. He had been awarded the Medal
of Honor, the highest decoration an American soldier can win for
personal bravery.

The new regiment, the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, was
promptly called, by some newspaper or by the public, the "Rough
Riders," and by that name it is always known. Most of the men in