The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (174 page)

41.
Ib.

42.
Mor.784–5.

43.
Dewey qu. TR.Auto.218. Mil.87 and Her. 12 concur.

44.
It will be remembered that the Atlantic Squadron was already menacingly moored off Key West. Her. 209.

45.
Long, Journal, Feb. 26, 1898, LON.; Dewey, qu. TR.Auto.218; Bea.61–2; Her.219–20; Mil.112; see also Gar. 186.

46.
Mor.784.

47.
Long, Journal, Feb. 25, 1898, LON.

48.
Ib., Feb. 26, 1898.

49.
Not only that, but JDL confirmed it the following day with a redundant order echoing TR’s own words: “Keep full of coal, the very best that can be had.” Perhaps the Secretary wished to give the impression that TR had been anticipating his own policy. In any case, TR was entirely within his rights to act the way he did on Feb. 25. A written memorandum of JDL, dated Apr. 21, 1897, states specifically: “… You will, at all times when the Secretary of the Navy shall be absent from the Department, whether such absence shall continue during the whole or any part of an official day, perform the duties of the Secretary of the Navy and sign all orders and other papers appertaining to such duties.” (TRP.)

50.
Long, Journal, Feb. 26, 1898, LON.

51.
See, e.g., Bea.61–3; Her.220; Mor.784 fn. For a critical view, see Lee.169. The fallacy that HCL helped TR draft his Dewey telegram has been laid to rest by Gar.186. TR.Wks.XII. xviii. Modern historians tend to agree with Dewey as to TR’s seminal role in bringing about the Battle of Manila. “The Assistant Secretary,” writes Howard K. Beale, “had seized the opportunity given by Long’s absence to insure our grabbing the Philippines without a decision to do so by either Congress or the President, or at least of all the people. Thus was important history made not by economic forces or democratic decisions but through the grasping of chance authority by a man with daring and a program.” (Bea.63.)

52.
Mor.786, 787.

53.
Ib., 790.

54.
May.149–150.

55.
Ib., 148–9.

56.
Tabouis,
Jules Cambon
, author’s translation.

57.
Mil. 115, Morg.363–4.

58.
May.149; Morg.364; Mil.117. Of course this is not to say there were not many absentees. The actual vote was 311–0 in the House, 76–0 in the Senate.

59.
Morg.364; Her.223.

60.
Mor.789.

61.
Long, Journal, Mar. 8, 1898, LON.; see Her.223–4 for details of the naval expansion program. Morg. 364; May.149.

62.
The following anecdote is taken from Flint, Charles R., “I Take a Hand in Combining Railroads and Industries,”
System
, Jan. 22, 1922.

63.
The
Nictheroy
arrived ahead of schedule, was rechristened
Buffalo
, and did good service in the Philippines. Flint, “I Take a Hand,” 31.

64.
Wood in TR.Wks.XI.xvi.

65.
Hag.LW.I.141. Dun.266 describes Wood as McK’s “favorite.” Mor.792.

66.
Elizabeth Cameron to Henry Adams, March 21, 1898, ADA.

67.
TR.Auto.216; Mil.123; Her.225; Pra.246; Rho.51; Mil.123.

68.
Proctor qu. Rho.51–2.

69.
Rho.52; May.144–5; Morg.365; Pra.246 ff; Mil.124.

70.
Rho.53.

71.
Mor.798.

72.
Herrick,
Naval Revolution
, 230.

73.
Rho.53.

74.
Bee.551;
Evening Telegraph
, Mar.
27, 1898;
Chicago Chronicle
, Mar. 29. Hanna’s personal opinion, which he never altered, was “War is just a damn nuisance.” Bee.554.

75.
Mil.127; Her.214–216. For text of the report, see Senate Exec. Docs., 55th Cong., 2nd Session, No. 207. Herrick has a good analysis of the evidence, and reveals that there was considerable dissent among members of the court before the unanimous verdict was reached. In 1911 another U.S. Court of Inquiry, which obtained funds to raise the
Maine
, upheld the findings of the first. There remained, however, a considerable amount of doubt in the minds of many impartial analysts, due to the inconclusive nature of the evidence. As the Spanish-American War faded from memory into history, the U.S. grew increasingly embarrassed about its assumption of Spanish guilt in 1898. According to Weems, J. E.,
The Fate of the Maine
(NY, 1941), TR’s fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt made a lame attempt to atone for it in 1935 by sending Madrid a Navy Department statement absolving Spain of all suspicion. The
Maine
disaster remains an unexplained mystery to this day, although contemporary opinion is that the explosion was accidental. See Rick-over, Adm. Hyman,
How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed
(Washington, 1976).

76.
Kipling, Rudyard,
Something of Myself
(London, 1936); EKR to TR Jr., July 13, 1927, Library of Congress.

77.
Mor.799; ib., 806; Levine, Isaac Don,
Mitchell: Pioneer of Air Power
(NY, 1943) 20. Samuel Pierrepont Langley was the head of the Smithsonian Institution, and had become friendly with TR during his Cosmos Club days. The Langley flying machine, or “aerodrome,” was demonstrably capable of powered, unmanned flight over distances of up to one mile. Kipling, in
Something of Myself
, recalls accompanying TR to one of Langley’s experimental launchings, which unfortunately ended with a nosedive into the Potomac. Gen. Greely, Chief of the U.S. Signal Corps, was another enthusiastic Langley backer, and worked with Assistant Secretary Roosevelt to set up the Davis Board. $50,000 was eventually appropriated by Congress for further Langley experiments, none of which were successful. TR and Greely were assisted in the Senate by John Mitchell of Wisconsin, father of Gen. Billy Mitchell, the air power visionary of the 1920s.

78.
The best and most sympathetic account of McKinley’s pre-war agony is in Gov. 76–90. See also Lee.181; Kohlsaat, H. H.,
From McKinley to Harding
(Scribner’s, 1923)
66;
Rho.31.

79.
See May. 153.

80.
Rho.63; Mil.131.

81.
JDL found the President bleary and befuddled from lack of sleep on Apr. 14. Long, Journal, same date, LON. Mil.133; Mor.812, and, e.g., 812: “I have preached the doctrine to him [McK] in such plain language that he will no longer see me!” (TR to W. Tudor, Apr. 5, 1898.) Also
Sun
, Mar. 29 d.l., TR.Scr.: “Of all the executive officers with whom Mr. McKinley has held consultations … there has been only one who has not ceased to use every endeavor to influence the President … to end the Cuban trouble without further delay.” The same article praises TR’s loyalty, but says that McK found him embarrassingly outspoken: “He has been set down as too radical for further advice.” For more on McK’s war message, see Mil.133–4; Morg. 368–72; also Rho.63–4; May.153–4.

82.
Mor.802–3. For a more labored, public explanation of his views, see ib., 816–8.

83.
Bigelow in Long, John D.,
Papers
(Mass. Hist. Soc., 1939) Vol. 78, 103.

84.
Rho.61; Morg.372; Mil. 135.

85.
Rho.57.

86.
Un. clip, TR.Scr.; Mor.814; Mil.137–8; Morg.373–4; Rho.63–4.

87.
Ib., 143.

88.
Mor.812; TR.Wks.XI.6. (This volume of ib. contains the complete text of
The Rough Riders
, and will be cited henceforth as
RR.)

89.
Azo.23; TR.War.Di. Apr. 17, 1898.

90.
RR.6;
TR.War.Di. Apr. 16, 17, 19, 1898.

91.
See TR.Auto.226.

92.
Her. 12; Sprout, Harold and Margaret,
The Rise of American Naval Power
(Princeton, 1966) 231; Bea.63; Bur.47–8.

93.
Her.234–5 balances out the two fleets, showing how Spanish naval strength existed largely on paper.

94.
Morison, Samuel Eliot,
The Oxford History of the American People
(Oxford, 1965) 802; Her.204 (TR drafted the Congressional bill arising out of his Personnel Bill himself; it was finally passed in 1899); Paullin,
History
, 429; Bea.63; Woo.43ff.

95.
Mil. 143–4; Hag.LW.I.143.

96.
Sun
, Apr. 17 and 18, 1898; Ada. 172; Winthrop Chanler to Margaret Chanler, Apr. 29, 1898, qu. Cha.285; Long, Journal, Apr. 25, LON.

97.
McClure’s
, Nov. 1898.
Sun
, Apr. 18; Chapman qu. Howe, M. A. de Wolfe,
John J. Chapman and His Letters
(Houghton Mifflin, 1937) 134.

98.
Mor.817. John Hay, at least, understood TR’s need to fight. “You obeyed your own daemon,” he wrote sympathetically. Tha.2.337.

99.
Rho.66.

100.
Mil.144, 145; Her.231.

101.
Mil.148; Hag.LW.I.145. The idea of a southwestern volunteer cavalry regiment had been formally suggested to the Secretary of War in early April by Governor Miguel Otero of New Mexico. See Wes. Ch.1 for background.

102.
Sun
, Apr. 25 d.l., TR.Scr.; Hag. LW.I.145.

103.
RR.6
.

104.
Hag.LW.I.145 says that it was Wood’s understanding that Alger was going to offer him a command anyway, the idea being that he and TR should each have a regiment. See also TR.Auto.222–3.

105.
JDL’s message: “War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to Philippine Islands. Commence operations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavors.” Qu. Mil.149. There is some question as to the exact authorship of this cable. See Lee.192. Rho.71.

106.
Azo.23.

107.
See Paullin,
History
, 432–3 for details of Naval War Board; also Her.227–8. The war plan was not, as is commonly supposed, one TR submitted to Mahan on Mar. 16, 1898. That document was drafted by President Goodrich of the Naval War College, whom TR considered an inferior strategic thinker. While flatteringly allowing Mahan to work on Goodrich’s plan, TR continued to refine his own, “a plan which pretty fairly matched that of the actual war.” Karsten, Peter, “The Nature of ‘Influence’: Roosevelt, Mahan, and the Concept of Sea Power,”
American Quarterly
, 1971.23(4). See also Grenville, John A. S., “American Preparations for War with Spain,”
Journal of American Studies
(GB) 1968.2(1),
passim;
TR to Mahan, Mor.796, 797, 798 (note the chilly politeness of the last letter, where Mahan has overstepped himself).

108.
Hag.LW.I. 145–6;
RR
.7.

109.
Wes.34; see also Mil.218.

110.
Hag.LW.I.151; ib., 146–
7

111.
Mil.171; Her.236–7; Rho.71–3; ib., 74; Mor.822–3. See also May.220: “Only a few prescient Europeans had even guessed that the war might extend to Spain’s Philippine possessions. The best informed writers had not credited
the American navy with such enterprise and efficiency.” In 1902 JDL tried, not very convincingly, to discount TR’s large responsibility for the success of the Battle of Manila. He claimed, in the privacy of his Journal (Jan. 3), that “… of my own notion I took [Dewey’s] name to the President and recommended the assignment.” Long had no choice but to recommend it, in that the President had already asked for it. He also denied as “a lie” the story that TR armed Dewey at the last minute with a special despatch of ammunition, but TR never made any such claim. Her.206 shows that JDL was actually obstructive of TR’s support plans for Dewey in early 1898. See Mil.150 fn.; Bea.63; Alfonso, Oscar S.,
TR and the Philippines
(NY, 1974).

112.
Mor.822; TR.War.Di. May 6, 1898; Mor. 823, 824, 831, 825 (for JDL’s equally fulsome letter to TR, see Bis.I.104), 823; TR.War.Di. May 12.

113.
Long, Journal, Apr. 25, 1898, LON.

Important sources not in Bibliography:
1. Davis, Richard Harding,
The Cuban and Porto Rican Campaigns
(Scribner’s, 1898). 2. Cosmas, Graham A.,
An Army for an Empire: The U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War
(U. Missouri Press, 1971).

1.
Sun
clip. n.d., TR.Scr.

2.
TR.Wks.XI.8. (This vol. of ib. contains complete text of
The Rough Riders
. Henceforth cited as
RR.)
TR was able to accept only one application in ten from his alma mater. Leonard Wood, too, was a Harvard man. Other sources: TR to B, May 5, 1898;
RR
. 10–11; Wes.56–7, qu.
Denver Evening Post
, May 4.

3.
RR
. 10; Wis.7–8.

4.
Jones, Virgil Carrington,
Roosevelt’s Rough Riders
(Doubleday, 1971) 35;
RR.9;
Stallman, R. W.,
Stephen Crane: A Biography
(NY, 1968) 385.

5.
TR to B, May 5, 1898;
RR
.8–10, 27–30; Wes.56–7; Cosby, Arthur S., “A Roosevelt Rough Rider Looks Back,” unpublished ms., 1957, TRC, 27.

6.
RR
. 10.

7.
TR.War.Di. May 15, 1898; Jones,
Rough Riders
, 35; Hag.LW.I.151–2.

8.
Wes.79; Hag.LW.I.151.

9.
Ib., 152; Jones,
Rough Riders
, 36.

10.
RR
. 10. “Why, he knows every man in the regiment by name”—a Rough Rider qu. in
McLure’s Magazine
, Nov. 1898;
Sun
, May 8.

11.
RR.16
.

12.
Ib.

13.
Jones,
Rough Riders
, 282–340 has a complete alphabetical roster of the regiment.

14.
Mor.832.

15.
Hag.LW.I.147; Cosby, “A RRR Looks Back,” 25;
RR
.22; pics in TRC.

16.
The following timetable of a typical day at Camp Wood is based on a letter of George Hamner (d. Feb. 6, 1973) to his sweetheart, qu. in Walker, Dale, “The Last of the Rough Riders,”
Montana
, XII.3 (July 1973) 43–4.