The Rough Riders

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt resigned his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and received permission to raise a volunteer cavalry regiment.  Having served in the New York National Guard, this was not beyond his capabilities.  Drawing on his experience in the West, TR went to San Antonio, Texas where he set up a recruiting station in the bar of the Menger Hotel.  Telegraphed appeals for volunteers produced 1,250 recruits at the Menger in very short order.  Below is a modern photo of the Menger Bar, which is basically unchanged from those days.

The bar is an exact copy of the pub in the Houses of Parliament in London, and in a family rite of passage, I was taken there shortly after my 21st birthday by a dear uncle for my first legal drink.  I had to drive 70 miles from Austin, but poor uncle had to drive almost 300 miles from West Texas, mostly overnight.  There are still bullet holes in the place from rowdy cowboys, and that bull moose trophy is symbolic of a later phase of Teddy Roosevelt's life.  More about that later.

The Rough Riders trained for several weeks near San Antonio before shipping out for Cuba.  In a typical wartime snafu, the men got there in good order, but their horses did not, so the Volunteer Cavalry became infantry.  They did manage to at least acquire a horse for Teddy, who rode back and forth between the rifle pits encouraging his men in several successful encounters with the Spanish, most notably at San Juan Hill.  The war ended shortly thereafter, with TR now famous.