July 1, 1898

"The instant I received the order I sprang on my horse, and then my "crowded hour" began...I spoke to the captain in command of the rear platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in my judgement we could not take these hills by firing at them, and that we must rush them. He answered that his orders were to keep his men lying where they were, and that he could not charge without orders. I asked where the colonel was, and as he was not in sight, said, "Then I am the ranking officer here and I give the order to charge"--for I did not want to keep the men longer in the open suffering under a fire which they could not effectively return.


Naturally the captain hesitated to obey this order when no word had been received from his own colonel. So I said, "Then let my men through, sir." and rode on through the lines, followed by the grinning Rough Riders, whose attention had been completely taken off the Spanish bullets, partly by my dialougue with the regulars, and partly by the language I had been using to themselves as I got the lines forward, for I had been joking with some and swearing at others, as the exigencies of the case seemed to demand. When we started to go through, however, it proved too much for the regulars, and they jumped up and came along, their officers and troops mingling with mine, all being delighted at the chance....."

The Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt

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