The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (129 page)

For six days the armada steamed southeast across a glassy ocean, under cloudless skies. Its leisurely pace, never more than seven knots, and frequently only four, was caused by the drag of two giant landing-scows and a tank-ship filled with drinking water. Since the thirty-one transport ships varied greatly in power, from big modern liners to iron paddle steamers of Civil War vintage, they straggled farther and farther apart, until the formation was over twenty-five miles long. On one occasion the rear guard lost touch with the vanguard for fourteen hours. Periodically General Shafter would call a halt, while his aides nervously counted ships coming over the horizon astern. Only when the number corresponded with those missing was the expedition allowed to proceed.
⁴

The foreign attachés aboard U.S.S.
Segurança
did not know whether to be alarmed or amused at the general’s magnificent disdain for enemy torpedo-boats, especially at night. “Had any of these made an attack on the fleet spread over an enormous area, each ship a blaze of lights and with the bands playing at times, a smart Spanish officer could not have failed to inflict a very serious loss,” wrote Captain Alfred W. Paget of the British Navy.
⁵
The American Navy was equally concerned, and the fleet’s warship escort made plain its annoyance by megaphone and semaphore; but Shafter spread over an enormous area himself, and was content to let his fleet do the same.

For officers like Roosevelt, who had airy first-class accommodations and wicker easy chairs, “it was very pleasant sailing southward
through the tropic seas.”
⁶
But for the men jammed below deck in splintery wooden bunks, breathing the same air as horses and mules—not to mention the effluvia of compacting layers of manure—things were rather less tolerable. There was a chorus of cheers on the morning of 20 June, when the fleet swung suddenly southwest “and we all knew that our destination was Santiago.”
⁷

A blue line of mountains rose near the
Yucatán’s
starboard bow, looming ever higher as the ship steamed within ten miles of shore. Some peaks rose six thousand feet sheer. Their silent massiveness gave the more thoughtful Rough Riders pause. “Our dreams turned to questions of an immediate concern—what was the enemy like? Would he show much resistance? How good was he in battle?”
⁸
But the mountains gave off no lethal bursts of smoke, and the fleet continued its coastal cruise across water “smooth as a mill pond.” Apprehension changed slowly to bravado: soon the troops were shouting war-cries across the water, and waiting for echoes to roll back.
⁹

At noon the fleet came to a halt about twenty miles east of Morro Castle, and a captain from the U.S. Navy blockade squadron (still holding nine Spanish warships in Santiago Harbor) came on board the
Segurança
to escort General Shafter to a rendezvous with Admiral Sampson. It was rumored that the two commanders, after reviewing several possible landing sites nearer the city, would be rowed ashore for a secret council of war with General Calixto García, head of the
insurrectos.
¹⁰

The
Segurança
steamed off alone, leaving the transport ships to wallow placidly behind at anchor. Hours passed while the invaders gazed their fill upon Cuba, “Pearl of the Antilles,” the most beautiful island within reach of the American continent.
¹¹
“Every feature of the landscape,” wrote Richard Harding Davis, “was painted in high lights; there was no shading, it was all brilliant, gorgeous, and glaring. The sea was an indigo blue, like the blue in a washtub; the green of the mountains was the green of corroded copper; the scarlet trees were the red of a Tommy’s jacket, and the sun was like a lime-light in its fierceness.”
¹²

Meanwhile, in a palm-thatched hut somewhere along the coast,
¹³
Shafter, Sampson, and García were perfecting a tripartite
plan for the Santiago campaign. It was agreed that the debarkation of troops would be made on the morning of the twenty-second at Daiquirí, eighteen miles east of Santiago. Daiquirí was a mere village, but it had a beach, and a pier of sorts, which should be able to handle Shafter’s lifeboats and scows. Starting at dawn, the Navy would bombard the village, as well as several other neighboring seaside settlements, in order to confuse the Spaniards as to which landing point the Army had chosen.
¹⁴

Once the Fifth Corps was safely ashore at Daiquirí, plans called for Shafter to capture the fishing port of Siboney, seven miles farther west, then to march directly up the Camino Real over the hills to Santiago, twelve miles north. This would be the most difficult and dangerous part of the expedition, for enemy defenses were known to be concentrated in those hills. One ridge in particular—known as San Juan Heights—was regarded as almost insuperable,
¹⁵
so heavy were its fortifications, and so determined was Spain’s General Linares to hold it as the last wall protecting Santiago. If he could keep Shafter’s men off at cannon-point for a few weeks, his two most powerful allies—yellow fever and dysentery—would surely lay low all those still standing. But if the
yanquis
by some miracle broke through, Santiago, and Cuba, and the war, and the Western Hemisphere would be theirs.

N
OT UNTIL THE EVENING
of the following day were battle orders broadcast among the thirty-one transport ships. When the news reached Roosevelt, he entertained the Rough Riders with his patented war-dance, evolved from years of prancing around the carcasses of large game animals. Hand on hip, hat waving in the air, he sang:

Aboard the
Yucatán
a macabre toast was drunk: “To the Officers—may they get killed, wounded or promoted!”
¹⁷
Only Roosevelt, presumably, could relish such sentiments to the full. That
night, in darkened dormitories that rolled and pitched uneasily in a rising sea, the Rough Riders prepared themselves for invasion. The solemnity of what was about to happen, the likelihood that some soldiers would never sleep again (three hundred Spanish troops were said to be entrenched on the heights above Daiquirí, with heavy guns),
¹⁸
made the hours before reveille increasingly suspenseful.

At
3:30 A.M
. bugles sounded below decks. In the shadows, men rose whispering, dressed, and donned their bulky equipment: blanket rolls, full canteens, hundred-round ammunition belts, and haversacks stuffed with three days’ rations.
¹⁹

Daiquirí was just visible when they emerged on deck in the chill predawn light. It was little more than a notch in the cliffs, with a clutch of corrugated-zinc huts surrounding an old ironworks and a railhead lined with ore-cars. The village appeared to be deserted, but as the Rough Riders looked, a great column of flame leaped up from the ironworks. Evidently the Spaniards intended to destroy Daiquirí’s only industrial resource before the
norteamericanos
arrived to exploit it.

Debarkation did not begin for several hours, for the sea was choppy and soldiers had considerable difficulty dropping into boats which rose and sank with the speed of elevators. At about
9:40 A.M
. the thunder of naval bombardment was heard from Siboney, seven miles west. One by one the warships along the coast opened fire, until the air was shaking with noise and the zinc roofs were fluttering above Daiquirí like leaves blown in a storm. The flames spread along the ore-cars to the shacks, and bands aboard the truck-cars struck up the expedition’s most-requested number: “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”
²⁰

Not until
10:10 A.M
. did Shafter silence the guns and order the first landing parties ashore. Some boats headed for the wooden pier, where even greater difficulties arose: now it was like jumping out of an elevator onto a passing floor. The fact that the pier was rotting, and slimy, did not help matters. The soldiers had to wait until high waves lifted them above dock level before leaping, in the knowledge that they would be crushed and ground to pieces if they fell between the boat and the barnacled pilings. Other boats raced for the beach,
through tumbling surf, and deposited their passengers on the shingle, some head over heels and cursing.
²¹

The problem of getting horses and mules ashore was solved in typical Shafter fashion: they were simply shoved into the sea and left to find the beach for themselves. Some hysterical animals chose to swim instead for Haiti, until a bugler on the beach thoughtfully blew a cavalry call. The horses, according to one witness, “came round to the right and made for the beach like ships answering their helms.”
²²

Meanwhile, Roosevelt was supervising the unloading of his two horses, Rain-in-the-Face and Texas. Out of respect to their eminent owner, sailors winched them into the water on booms; but a huge breaker engulfed Rain-in-the-Face, and drowned her before she could be released from harness. Roosevelt, “snorting like a bull, split the air with one blasphemy after another,” wrote Albert Smith, the Vitagraph cameraman. The terrified sailors took such care with Texas that she seemed to hang in the air indefinitely, until Roosevelt, losing his temper again, bellowed, “Stop that goddamned animal torture!” This time there was no mishap, and the little horse splashed safely to shore.
²³

According to general orders, the Rough Riders were not due to land until much later in the day, after most of the regulars, but it was soon apparent to Roosevelt that “the go-as-you-please” principle applied to men as well as horses. As luck would have it, his old aide from the Navy Department, Lieutenant Sharp, steamed by in a converted yacht, and offered to pilot the
Yucatán
within a few hundred yards of shore. From this privileged position the Rough Riders landed well in advance of the other cavalry regiments.
²⁴
The
Yucatán
thereupon steamed away, taking large quantities of personal effects with her before any attempt was made to unload them. Roosevelt was left standing on the sand with nothing but a yellow mackintosh and a toothbrush. Fortunately his most essential items of baggage were inside his Rough Rider hat: several extra pairs of spectacles, sewn into the lining.
²⁵
If he was to meet his fate in Cuba, he wished to see it in clear focus.

More than six thousand troops were on Cuban soil by sunset. Not one shot had been fired in Daiquirí’s defense; the ruined village
was occupied only by a few
insurrectos
, rather the worse for bombardment.

As dusk fell, campfires began to glow along the beach and in the little valley where the Rough Riders were lying on ponchos. At intervals there were shrieks and laughter, as red ants or crabs disturbed their rest;
²⁶
but the tropical air was balmy, the sky filled with comforting stars, and soon everybody except the guards was asleep.

P
OLITICAL RIVALRY
, that most ubiquitous of social weeds, thrives just as fast on tropical islands as in the smoke-filled rooms of northern capitals. By the time the Rough Riders awoke on the morning of 23 June, two generals were already locked in contention for the honor of leading the march upon Santiago.

According to invasion orders, Major General Joseph (“Fighting Joe”) Wheeler, commander of the Cavalry Division, was supposed to follow Brigadier General H. W. Lawton of the 2nd Infantry Division to Siboney and remain there to supervise the rest of the landing operation while Lawton established himself farther inland on the Camino Real, or Santiago road. But not for nothing had Fighting Joe earned his nickname, and his reputation of “never staying still in one place long enough for the Almighty to put a finger on him.”
²⁷
The fact that Lawton was tall, and had fought for the Union in the Civil War, while Wheeler was five foot two, and had been the leader of the Confederate cavalry, only intensified the latter’s ambition to be first to encounter “the Yankees—dammit, I mean the Spaniards.”
²⁸
Needless to say, this attitude endeared him to the Rough Riders. “A regular game-cock,”
²⁹
was Roosevelt’s opinion of the bristling little general.