After the smoke cleared Roosevelt and his exhausted Rough Riders posed for a victory photo. Notably absent were the "US Colored" cavalry and infantry regulars who did much to win the day. |
When I was a kid, Theodore Roosevelt was my hero. I know, incredibly dorky. But Teddy had been a fat, bookish kid with
glasses, sort of like me, who grew up to have an exciting life. For a couple of years or so in my pre-teens I
took to pinning the brim of my cowboy hat to the crown on one side with a U.S. Army insignia swiped from my Dad’s
World War II uniform. I led an
entirely imaginary “Junior Rough Rider”
outfit in elaborate games of defending Cheyenne
from foreign menace. I assure you that I could not get any of the other
kids in the neighborhood to join me in this odd ball fantasy.
In school, much to the confusion
and irritation of my teachers, I insisted on dating all of my papers 1905, the
first year of Roosevelt’s second term as President.
Much of Roosevelt’s appeal to me was his
famous Charge up San Juan Hill. In later years I discovered that while T.R. did, indeed perform ably and
bravely that day and that his Rough Riders fought well, it was not the whole
story.
On July 1, 1898 the heaviest land
combat of the Spanish American War took
place in the Battle for San Juan Heights
during the American drive to take the city of Santiago, Cuba.
With the outbreak of the War Roosevelt, a hyperkinetic New York politician who was serving
ably as Assistant Secretary of the Navy—a
post in which he had played a key roll in building the Great White Fleet which made the U.S. Navy among the most modern in
the world—yearned for military action on the ground.
He was not encouraged by President William McKinley in his first
attempt to volunteer to raise a cavalry
regiment for the conflict. He convinced
his close friend Col. Leonard Wood,
one of the most respected officers in the Regular
Army and a medical doctor serving as an advisor to the President, to offer
to lead a volunteer unit with Roosevelt as his second in command and in charge
of recruitment. McKinley, needing to
raise a large army quickly, reluctantly agreed.
Roosevelt famously recruited a
unit that mixed cowboys who he was
familiar with from his days as a South
Dakota rancher, Harvard pals and
polo playing New York socialites.
Among the Volunteers were a
legendary western lawman, Bucky O’Niell,
captain of a troop raised in Arizona
and at least one of the criminals he had once locked up serving under an
assumed name. Like O’Niell, a former
militia officer, many men were veterans of the Indian wars and provided
leadership as junior officers and non-commissioned officers rare in Volunteer
units. There were also swells like Hamilton Fish, grandson of the New York
Governor and Senator of the same name.
Roosevelt used his considerable
influence, and some of his own wealth, to make sure that the men were armed
with the same modern Krag-Jorgensen carbines used by the regular cavalry and generally had
the most up to date equipment and the finest horse stock available. The unit was trained to the highest standards
and the men, mostly expert horsemen, were soon considered the equal of regular
troops.
Designated the First Volunteer
Cavalry (1st U.S.V.C), the unit arrived by train with their horses, mules,
and baggage at Tampa, Florida for
disembarkation on May 29. They found a
tangle of confusion and a shortage of ships.
After days of dithering while troops fell ill with heat stroke and
tropical infections, Major General William Shafter, a 300 lb. veteran regular army officer who turned out to be
an indifferent bordering on incompetent commander of the V Corps for the campaign against Santiago, under pressure from Washington to move quickly ordered
the Volunteers to board available ships without their horses, mules, and most
of their equipment.
There
was only room for eight of twelve companies.
With Yellow Fever and Malaria already rampant a fourth of the
men mustered and trained were unavailable by the time the ships landed in east
of Santiago on June 21 and 22 the men were also demoralized by the loss of
their horses and equipment.
Once on
shore they became part of the cavalry division commanded by Major General of Volunteers Joseph Wheeler,
a storied Confederate cavalry
commander and long time Democratic
Representative from Alabama. McKinley had accepted Wheeler’s offer to
serve and placed him in high command in the hopes that common wartime service
would heal lingering sectional divisions.
And in fact that was one of the results.
Blue uniformed Federal troops were cheered as they moved through the
South to disembarkation points instead of stoned as some Yankees had
feared.
Wheeler’s
division also included the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, Buffalo Soldier Black troops and tough as nails veteran Indian
fighters from Ft. Leavenworth. Along with the Rough Riders and other
regular army cavalry units, they had arrived without horses and baggage.
Wheeler
was only a barely reconstructed Rebel.
He hated Yankees and disdained the Colored
troops under his command. But he was an
aggressive officer. Two after days of
landing Shafer had Wheeler dispatch a dismounted cavalry reconnaissance of
enemy lines in support of Cuban irregulars
to find where the enemy might be dug in.
He was under orders to hold the bulk of his troops to cover continuing
landing operations. Instead Wheeler,
acting on his own authority moved his men aggressively forward with the Rough
Riders and 10thCavalry in the lead and provoked a pitched battle
with the Spanish rearguard at Las Guasimas.
The
troops were weakened by heat and disease and issued four days of rations and
what ammunition they could carry. They
had no baggage, logistical support, and had two small field guns. Only officers were mounted. None of the men were trained as infantry or
accustomed to long marches, especially in the stifling heat. For two hours the Spanish infantry, which enjoyed artillery
support, mauled and stymied the American advance until the Spanish commander Major General Antero Rubín ordered an orderly retreat to more defensible lines.
During the battle a confused and excited Wheeler was heard rallying his
troops with exhortations to “Get those damned Yankee!” War correspondents covering the battle
reported a glorious victory, on the ground it was recognized as the near
disaster it was.
The Spanish fell back on a well defended line of trenches and block houses
including commanding positions on two hills of the San Juan Heights. After
waiting for the rest of V Corps to land, Shafter ordered a general offensive
against the Santiago defensive line on June 1.
Wheeler had fallen ill with malaria and was replaced by his subordinate Brigadier General Samuel S. Sumner and
Wood was brevetted to Brigadier to take command of Sumner’s 2nd Brigade. Roosevelt in turn was brevetted full Colonel in command of the Rough Riders.
Shafter had three divisions. He
ordered the infantry of the 1st and 2nd Divisions, which included two other Black regiments, the 23rd and 24th Infantry (Colored), to the north to take the fortified
stronghold at El Caney. This was to take no more than two hours
then the divisions were expected to move up to support an attack by the
dismounted cavalry on the heights.
But the 2nd Division under General Henry W. Lawton was held off by
stiff Spanish resistance at El Caney for more than twelve hours. Brigades of the 1st Division came under withering
fire when they emerged from a tree line at the base of the heights. The commander of the 3rd Brigade was mortally wounded the second he stepped from the
tree line and two more officers assuming command were quickly wounded and had
to be evacuated. The whole division was
pinned down under intense fire in what became known as Hell’s Pocket while they waited on Lawton to come up.
The cavalry on the right of the line came up and also took heavy fire. With his men pinned in shallow trenches Capt.
O’Niell of the Rough Riders exposed himself to enemy fire to calm his troops
and was shot through the throat shortly after assuring a worried subordinate
that “a Spanish bullet hasn’t been made that can kill me.”
Distressed, Roosevelt determined that their position was untenable and he
must either withdraw or attack. He took
a vague order to support the pinned down infantry on his left as an excuse to
attack. Ahead of him was the smaller of
two hills commanding the heights, dubbed Kettle
Hill because a cauldron for boiling sugar cane were found near the base. Roosevelt formed his regiment under fire and
moved out. He was the only officer
mounted because he feared he might succumb to an asthma attack in the heat
trying to climb the hill.
Seeing the Rough Riders moving unilaterally, other units of Woods’ 2nd Brigade, including elements of the
10th and the white Volunteers of the 3rd
Cavalry joined in the assault at the urging of 1st Lt. Jules G.
Ord of the 10th. Further left the Black troops of the 23rd and
24th Infantry from the 2nd Division
began moving without orders when they observed the advance..
Men started dropping of heat prostration on the climb. Others were riddled by heavy fire. Roosevelt lost his horse and sustained a
light wound on the wrist but pressed forward.
The dismounted cavalry, units now thoroughly mixed, pressed the frontal
attack with some of the 10th joining the Black infantry regiments on the left
slope.
After sustaining heavy casualties the troops, Roosevelt near the van, took
the summit sending the defenders to the protection of the fortifications and
block house atop San Juan Hill itself.
The first colors on the summit were the 3rd and the 10th Cavalry with
the Rough Rider banner soon following.
In fact troops of all units plus elements of the Black infantry took
Kettle Hill, although Roosevelt and the Rough Riders would received almost all
of the credit in press accounts.
Meanwhile the men on top of Kettle hill were taking heavy fire from San
Juan. General Wheeler, rising from his
sick bed at the sound of battle, arrived on the scene to take operational
command since Shafter was ill at his headquarters well behind the lines. He ordered the whole
1st Division under the command of Brigadier
General Jacob Ford Kent forward and then re-took personal command of the
cavalry.
Kent’s Colored Infantry and elements of the 10th Cavalry were already
advancing up the slope. Other units
closed in support. Meanwhile the Cavalry
at the top of Kettle Hill began an advance down the “saddle” between it and San
Juan Hill and up the second. Young Ord
was killed breasting the summit of the Hill his Black troops on his heels. The troops pressed on, taking the shell
pocked block house in furious hand to hand combat.
Roosevelt led a last charge of the cavalry up to the top of the hill, sweeping
it of Spanish and uniting with the exhausted black troops.
Meanwhile other units of the cavalry’s 1st Brigade secured a smaller knoll
on the Spanish right flank. The heights
had been cleared, but fearing a counter attack, Wheeler ordered the exhausted
men to throw up breastworks facing the city of Santiago, a mile or so in the
distance.
Roosevelt’s men did repulse one weak counter attack. But back at his headquarters in the rear
Shafter feared a general counter attack and ordered a retreat to the original
positions in the trenches as the bottoms of the hills. Unable to convince his superior to
countermand the order, Wheeler on the scene simply ignored it and continued
fortifying his position over night.
Lawton’s Division, badly roughed up at El Caney, finally arrived around
noon on July 2. The position was now
secure and artillery was brought up to the heights to threaten the city and a
squadron of Spanish cruisers in the harbor.
The cruisers were forced to flee the guns and ran into a waiting superior
American Navy taskforce which destroyed them.
After a siege by combined American and Cuban nationalist forces, the
Spanish surrendered Santiago on July 17.
That completed major land operations in Cuba.
Troops who survived the shot, shell, and heat stroke of the Battle for San
Juan Heights were ravaged by yellow fever and malaria. General Shafter petitioned Washington for a rapid withdrawal of V
Corps calling it an “army of convalescents.”
Concerned that the President would ignore the bumbling Shafter, a group
of senior officer prevailed upon the politically well connected Roosevelt to
send a similar appeal on their behalf.
American evacuation began on August 7.
Troops of the 9th Infantry
(Colored) were left behind as an occupation force under the theory that
their race and Southern origin would protect them from illness. It didn’t.
By the time they, too, finally went home almost a tenth of their number
came down with Yellow Fever.
Roosevelt returned a national hero, the Rough Riders celebrated as folk
heroes. On the strength of his celebrity
Roosevelt won the spot as McKinley’s running mate in 1900 and ascended to the
Presidency upon his assassination.
The Buffalo Soldiers, cavalry and infantry alike, who had fought so well
received virtually no notice. Even their
white officers, including the heroic Lt. Ord, the son of an active duty
General, were denied decorations.
Roosevelt got his Medal of Honor,
arguably well deserved. But so did Schafer
who was ineffective as a commander and never came under hostile fire.
And, oh yes, the U.S. won the war, obtained an empire, and was recognized
as a first rate world power for the first time.
I like your new diggs, Patrick -- very nice.
ReplyDeletecan you cite your source?
ReplyDeleteIt has been a long time since I wrote this and I did not keep notes. Generally I start researching a blog post with Wikipedia. I do not rely solely on that, but especially for well documented subjects find it generally accurate and useful. It also provides links to source materials which I check. In this case I remember consulting regimental histories of the Rough Riders and the Black Buffalo Soldier regiments, military history magazine articles, and biographical material on Roosevelt. I believe I also consulted two or three of the Roosevelt biographies on my book shelves and a history of the Spanish-American War.
Delete