USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 28
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On the evening of June 7 orders were received to be at Port Tampa at day- break the following morning, with only eight dismounted troops of seventy men each. Four junior organizations were left at Tampa, together with about fifteen men from each of the departing troops, the latter to come along with the horses when the landing had been effected. The same was done in every
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"WILD BILL" OWENS OF TROOP B A cowboy Rough Rider
CAMP OF ARIZONA NATIONAL GUARD, PRESCOTT, SEPTEMBER. 1909
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cavalry regiment, save that some were only allowed to send four troops. It was understood that the force was simply an expeditionary one, to land and prepare the way for the main body. The organizations left behind at Tampa, under Maj. H. B. Hersey, were those of Captains Alexander, Curry, McGinnis and Day. Nothing save eredit can attach to the officers and men of the con- tingent left behind, for they obeyed orders and did a work fully as important as that of the force which "went down to the battle."
Under this distribution of the squadrons, Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt went out in command of four troops, ranking Brodie. The latter was fortunate enough to take three of his troops and gained a good fourth in Troop E, com- manded by Capt. Frederick Muller, who had had experience in the regular army.
Despite the orders received, no transportation was provided, and after sev- eral shifts between the railroad tracks, long after midnight the commanding officers practically seized a train of coal cars, into which the men and their blanket rolls were loaded, together with a few tons of cartridges, and the journey of nine miles to the port was concluded well after daylight. At Tampa the situation was no better, for no transport ship had been provided, and the long wharf was crowded with thousands of men who didn't seem to know where they were going or what they were to do. Colonel Humphrey of the quartermaster's department finally was located. He allotted the regiment a transport, the Yucatan, No. 8. It was found that she had previously been alotted to two other regiments, the Second Infantry and the Seventy-first New York Volunteers, either one of which had more men than could possibly have been stored aboard. So Wood and his men double-timed down the wharf to board the boat just a few minutes before rival claimants to its accommodations appeared.
Though promptly set out into the bay, it was only to anchor, for there had been rumors of the coming from Spain of what later was known as the "Spook Fleet." Finally the start was made on June 13. There was a very close approach to a conclusion of the trip at its very beginning. As the Yucatan was proceeding down the shallow channel to the sea, a large troop ship, just ahead, stuck her nose into the mud and swung with the tide across the channel. The Yucatan's captain barely managed to escape cutting the other ship in twain. Unknown to the soldiery of both ships, who regarded the collision as rather a pleasant break in the monotony, the Yucatan in her bow carried about a ton of gun-cotton ammunition for a dynamite gun, which had been given the regiment, in keeping with the idea that it was a freak organization.
The expedition comprised the Fifth Army Corps, under command of Maj .- Gen. Wm. R. Shafter, for many years Colonel of the First Infantry in Arizona and perhaps better known throughout the army as "Pecos Bill." Just why he was placed in command has never been explained. Not only had he never shown any especial capacity for large command, but he was almost incapacitated for active service owing to excessive weight.
ARIZONA'S FLAG FIRST RAISED IN CUBA
The regimental flag of the Rough Riders, like the organization itself, was volunteer in origin. When the detachment of recruits left Phoenix the fact that it had borne no flag was noted by a number of ladies of the Relief Corps
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attached to the Phoenix post of the Grand Army of the Republic. They searched the city for silk of the proper color, but could not find any heavy enough for the purpose. But, doing the best they could, they met at the home of one of their number and spent almost a whole night in a labor of patriotic devotion, never stopping till the flag was done and scissored stars had been well sewn on. As no cord could be found, the top of the staff was decorated with tri-colored satin ribbons. A few days later, at Prescott, the flag was formally presented by Governor McCord and a committee of ladies. From the war department no flags had been received, so the Arizona flag was carried at parades and dis- played before the tent of the regimental commander.
After the shore and blockhouse at Daiquiri had been shelled by the war , vessels of the American fleet and the Spaniards driven back, in one of the first small boats to land was the flag of the Rough Riders. On suggestion, it is understood, of Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, it was taken to the top of a hill that frowned above the bay to the eastward, to be raised above a blockhouse which had been the target of the warships for hours, but which, possibly owing to its elevation, had escaped almost unscathed. The party that climbed the hill comprised the surgeon-major of the regiment, Doctor LaMotte, Color-Sergeant Wright and Chief Trumpeter Platt. At the blockhouse they were joined by Edward Marshall, a noted newspaper correspondent, later seriously wounded at Guasimas, and a sailor, who proved to be the only expert climher of the lot, and with whose assistance the flag was finally displayed, its staff lashed to the Spanish pole.
As the flag blew out in the breeze, there came on one of the most dramatic episodes of the war. The Rough Riders were on the transport Yucatan, close to the shore. An Arizona captain had seen the small party winding up the path to the top and had noted their maneuvers. He first noted the raising of the flag. As the wind caught its folds he snatched up a field glass and saw the streaming ribbons, then threw his hat to the deck, jumped to the top of the bulwark and yelled: "Howl, ye Arizona men-it's our flag!" and the men howled as only Arizona cowboys could, delirious in their joy and in the pride of their patriotism. Someone on the hurricane deck tied down the whistle cord, the band of the Second Infantry whisked up instruments and played "A Hot Time" on the inspiration of the moment, and every man who had a revolver emptied it over the side. Almost in an instant every whistle of the fifty trans- ports and supply vessels in the harbor took up the note of rejoicing. Twenty thousand men were cheering. There was a rattle of musketry from the Cuban allies on shore. A dozen bands increased the din in only immaterial degree. Then the guns of warships on the flanks joined in in a mighty salute to the flag of the Nation, harbinger of victory, emblem of liberty. No flag on land or sea ever had grander salutation. And the flag was the flag of the Arizona squadron. The Arizona flag led the regiment on the awful day of Las Guasimas; it was at the front all through the heat of the battle of Kettle Hill; it waved over the trenches before Santiago and later was borne through the captured city to the transport.
At Montauk in waiting were a regimental flag and a standard, but they were snubbed. The colors had "run" in the squadron flag and it had lost its beauty. Its ribbons were torn and faded. But the rents that came from the
GOVERNOR MCCORD PRESENTING ROUGH RIDER FLAG, PRESCOTT, MAY 4, 1898
COLONEL M. H. MCCORD AND OFFICERS OF THE FIRST TERRITORIAL INFANTRY
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flight of a half-dozen Spanish bullets only made it the more cherished and no other flag was carried till the day of muster-out. Somewhere in the show rooms of the war department at Washington are flags inscribed "First United States Volunteer Cavalry," but they never were in service. In Santa Fé is a hand- some flag, presented by New Mexicans to the second squadron of the regiment, but it remained at Tampa with the camp guard troops and was never in action. In the office of the Governor of Arizona, in a deep, oblong, glass-doored box, is a draped American flag. In its folds are rents and holes. It is not hand- some, yet it is held by the governor in trust as one of the most valuable of Arizona's treasures-the first flag raised on foreign soil by American soldiers in the war with Spain.
THE HOT FIGHT AT GUASIMAS
The southern coast of Cuba was reached June 20 and on the morning of the 22d came the order for landing at the little port of Daiquiri, where the Spaniards had been shelled from a couple of block houses by the fire of the ships of Sampson's squadron. The landing was at a small half-ruined staging. Here two negro soldiers were crushed between the boat and the wharf, and, loaded down with their cartridge belts, and probably dead already, sank to the bottom of the deep inlet. Captain O'Neill here distinguished himself in a manner that undoubtedly would have won him a medal of honor had he lived to receive it. In full uniform he plunged over the side to rescue the men, but without success.
Camp was made at Daiquiri beside a block house that had been wrecked by the fire of shells from the fleet. Each man lay down in the curve of his blanket roll, for there might be necessity to go on picket or to repulse a Spanish charge. All was quiet, as became the first night of landing on a foreign shore. Upon a hilltop, a Cuban bugle played "tattoo," the shrill notes mellowed into rare sweetness by the distance. Then some soldier seized the psychological moment. In a clear tenor, from somewhere near the center of the recumbent mass of men, he sang "Upon the Bank of the Wabash." He sang it alone. Be it to the credit of the good taste of his comrades, there was no interruption. When he finished, a little sigh appeared to run all through the regiment and each man settled back to slumber or to his thoughts. But one Arizona trooper hoarsely murmured, addressing no one in particular, "I guess that's about all I can stand. If he had sung 'Home, Sweet Home,' I would have gone over and murdered him."
The following day largely was spent in the inspection of a passing army of about 4,000 Cubans, the Orientales of General Garcia. It can hardly be said that the Arizonans enthused over their allies, who, generally, were bare-legged and ragged, were undisciplined and variously armed. As Sergeant Davidson put it: "And that is what we came down to set free! If the walking wasn't so damn bad, I believe I'd start back home right now."
At 3 o'clock that afternoon the regiment was ordered to Siboney, which was reached shortly after dark, after an exhausting twelve-mile march through the jungles, mainly in single file, with little attention paid to safety. The next morning, sunrise found the regiment toiling up a steep hillside, at last really going into action.
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The night before, the senior officers had been in consultation with General Young and General Wheeler. The last named, already famous as a leader in the Confederate army, had been placed in command of the cavalry division. As General Shafter was still on board of the steamer Seguranca, General Wheeler was ranking officer on land. He had received from Cuhan General Castillo a map of the country behind Siboney, in which the main Spanish posi- tion was shown at Guasimas, about four miles inland, on the inner trail to Santiago. Young's brigade was directed to march against this post. Colonel Wood's command, about 500 strong, was to take a ridge road, while the regu- lars, four troops each of the First and Tenth Cavalry, were to advance along a parallel valley road, to join a half mile from the enemy's outposts.
The assertion was made at the time that the Rough Riders were ambushed, as they were traveling over the trail. This was absolutely not so. Colonel Wood had been notified by Cuban scouts that he would find on the trail a dead guerilla, killed the previous afternoon. Captain Capron, an officer of experi- ence in the Seventh Cavalry, was in command of the vanguard, and all possible precautions had been taken against surprises.
The civil governor of Santiago is authority for the statement that the Span- ish force amounted to 4,000. There was considerable lying over the engage- ment, for the Spaniards could hardly admit that with such an army they had been defeated and driven from an entrenched position by an American force that numbered only 940. The Spanish position was in command of General Ruhin, but present during the fight was Lieutenant-General Linares, the senior Spanish officer of the Military Division of Santiago de Cuba, accompanied by Generals Taral and Vara del Ray. Linares was shot and so badly wounded that the command of the Santiago forces later devolved upon Taral. The engagement lasted a couple of hours. The American fire, which was individual among the volunteers and not by volleys, proved very effective. According to the Spaniards, the Americans didn't know that they were beaten, but per- sisted in advancing, fighting in a peculiar style to which the enemy was un- accustomed.
It is probable that the Spaniards had been leaving their entrenchments for some time before the final rush of the Rough Riders, for when the Americans reached the trenches within them only were found twenty-nine of the Spanish dead. Spies and Cuban refugees later stated that for six hours that day, dead and wounded were being brought into Santiago. General Taral admitted a loss of 250, while the Spanish press conceded that seventy-seven were killed.
On the American side, Captain Capron and fifteen men were killed, and six officers and forty-six men were wounded. Corporal George H. Doherty and Private Edward Liggett of Troop A were killed. Major Brodie was shot in the arm, Captain McClintock received several machine-gun bullet wounds in the ankle. Thomas W. Wiggins and Norman L. Orme of Troop B were badly wounded.
The first reports of this battle of Guasimas, or Sevilla, as the Spaniards called it, received by the American public, were misleading and false. This was largely due to the report brought back to the people by a staff officer, who claimed to have been "sent" to the rear for reinforcements. He made remark- ably good time, though on foot. At a block house, on the hill above Siboney,
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ROUGH RIDER OFFICERS AT MESS, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
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he met Farrier Barney Harmsen of Troop B, who, when attacked by acute rheumatism, had been left behind, with a broken gun. Harmsen had repaired the rifle and had painfully made his way up the hill. In answer to his inquiries, the officer, who had dropped from fatigue, told him that Troop B was "wiped out" and that he himself had seen the captain fall. Harmsen saw his duty clearly and, grasping the carbine, he started to hobble up the trail, remarking as he went: "If the good old troop is gone, by God it's my place to go with it."
SAN JUAN AND KETTLE HILL
The Arizona troops participated with their regiment in the fighting at San Juan, July 1-3, and in the rest of the Santiago campaign. There was heavy loss in action. In Troop A, Captain O'Neill and Privates James Boyle, Fred E. Champlin and Lewis Reynolds were killed and Sergeant Jas. T. Greenlee, Corporal Harry G. White, Trumpeter Emilio Cassi, Wagoner John H. Waller and Privates Fred W. Bugbee, Chas. B. Jackson, Edward O'Brien, Chas. B. Perry and Wm. F. Wallace were wounded. In Troop B the killed included Corporal Joel Rex Hall and Privates David Logue, Oliver B. Norton, Race W. Smith and John W. Swetnam. The troop list of wounded included Quarter- master Sergeant Stephen R. Pate, Sergeant David L. Hughes, Corporal Jerry F. Lee and Privates John M. Hall, John S. Hammer, Jas. E. Murphy and David E. Warford.
There were casualties among the Arizonans other than in battle. In Troop. A, Privates Stanley Hollister, Alex H. Wallace and George Walsh died of disease. In Troop B, Leroy E. Tomlinson died of typhoid on the way to Cuba, and Wellman H. Sanders died in the trenches of fever. Since the war, largely from the effects of hardships and fever, it is believed that more than a third of the membership of the two troops has passed away. Almost nine-tenths of the Arizonans in Cuba were "on sick report" at one time or another before muster-out.
O'Neill's death was as dramatic as his life had been. He had proven an excellent officer, alert and painstaking, with a romantic view of the war which seemed to gloss over the hardships of the campaign. He was not the sort of soldier, however, who lay in a trench uncomplainingly. On the first of July his troop was in a sunken road behind a dense leafy screen, through which was coming a very hail of bullets, wasted by the Spaniards, as usually, only in the direction of the unseen foe. O'Neill, uneasy and anxious to see what was going on and to move forward, arose and walked along the line of the road in front of his men. A sergeant called to him to lie down, that he was in danger. With an airy wave of a freshly rolled cigarette, the Captain observed, "The Spanish bullet isn't molded that will hit me." Then it was that he was struck down by the messenger of death, shot through the head and instantly killed.
At the San Juan fight were six newspaper correspondents to every regiment actually in the field in Cuba. Yet there have been claims that the Rough Riders never were at San Juan. Possibly the best refutation is the list of killed and wounded. The Rough Riders charged an extension of the San Juan height, called Kettle Hill, for on its crest had been left a large sugar kettle. This hill was taken mainly by the Rough Riders, who drove from their front a large force of intrenched Spanish infantry and who later held the crest, digging trenches Vol. 11-14
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at night to better sustain their position. The fighting was at least as severe on the Kettle Hill side as at San Juan and the casualties were as heavy.
Here should be punctured also a report, that seems commonly accepted, to the effect that the negro troops saved the Rough Riders at San Juan. A squad- ron or more of the Ninth Cavalry, colored, was lying in comparative safety in a depression at the foot of the hill and was passed over by the Rough Riders. Colonel Roosevelt, seeing his duty before him, joyously led the way forward. Whether lie ordered the Ninth Cavalry to come on or not is entirely immaterial. Several of its captains, possibly disregarding orders to remain in reserve, called up their black troopers and in a moment there was a parti-colored line of carbine-bearing soldiery swarming up the grass-covered eminence. Assuredly this was not "saving" the Rough Riders. The two commands were only a part of a large army that was assaulting the Spanish position along a line that was miles in length. On the same subject, reverting to the Guasimas fight, four troops of the Tenth Cavalry, held in reserve for a brief period after the fight started, served magnificently in flanking and driving the Spaniards, toward the end of the engagement. But this, again, hardly could be called "saving" the Rough Riders, for the negro cavalry constituted only one-fourth of the at- tacking force. No better fighting was done on the Island of Cuba than by the negro troops, but the "saving" story is the veriest piffle.
After Guasimas, Colonel Wood had become a brigadier and Colonel Roose- velt had succeeded to the command of the regiment. The manner in which he led it is American history. Even finer than his conduct upon the battlefield was his regard for his men, who sickened by scores in the miasmatic trenches, both before and after the surrender of Santiago on July 16. It was he who finally started the movement for the return of the troops to the United States.
The regiment left Santiago August 8 and arrived at Montauk Point, New York, August 14. Troops C, H, I and M, which had been left at Tampa, had been brought to the Montauk camp only two days before, their members hardly in better condition than were the troopers who had gone to Cuba. The com- mand became real cavalry again for only a short time, for it was mustered out of service September 15, 1898, with a strength of forty-seven officers and 1,090 enlisted men, present or absent.
There should be mention that Arizona also provided the regimental mascot. This was a half-grown mountain lion, presented by Robert Brow of Prescott. The beast, named Josephine, was as fierce as was the regiment in popular esti- mation. Josephine had been well cared for at Tampa and Montauk, but on the western journey was lost in Chicago. After the war nearly all the surviving Arizona troopers returned and quietly dropped into their old vocations.
Since muster-out, the Rough Riders have had several reunions. The first was at Las Vegas, New Mexico, June 24, 1899, on the anniversary of the battle of Guasimas and likewise on the day of the Feast of San Juan. A regimental association had been formed at the Montauk Point camp, with Brodie, pro- moted to be lieutenant-colonel, as president. The second reunion, a year later, was at Oklahoma City and the third at Colorado Springs, all three attended by Colonel Roosevelt, who proved a strong drawing card for the attendance of thousands of civilian sightseers. Then in April, 1902, while Colonel Roosevelt was Vice President of the Nation, came the reunion at San Antonio, where the
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attending troopers were camped upon the same spot from which they started for Cuba. There has been no general reunion since that time. The regiment was nation-wide in its origin and most of the surviving troopers are men of moderate means. Attempts have been made to bring them to Prescott, particu- larly at the time of the dedication of the Rough Rider Monument, but distance and cost have prevented. At the inauguration of President Roosevelt, March 4, 1905, the President's personal bodyguard comprised a platoon of thirty Rough Riders, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Brodie. Other members from Arizona were Captains J. H. MeClintock and J. L. B. Alexander of Phoenix, Lieut. G. B. Wilcox of Bisbee, B. F. Daniels of Yuma and C. E. Mills of Morenci.
In Arlington is a shaft in honor of the dead of the regiment, crected by the Rough Riders' National Monument Society, au organization headed by Mrs. Allan K. Capron, widow of the first Rough Rider commissioned officer killed in the Santiago campaign. The dedication of this monument, on April 12, 1907, was honored by the presence of the President of the United States.
Energetic citizens of Prescott, in May, 1905, headed by R. E. Morrison, conceived the idea of a magnificent statue and kept at the work until, on July 4, 1907, was dedicated the O'Neill Rough Rider Monument, on the very spot on the Prescott Plaza from which the Rough Riders had marched out for war. The statue, the work of Solon Borglum, is a magnificent bit of bronze, illus- trating more the spirit of the regiment than serving to reproduce the form or features of O'Neill. The statue was accepted on behalf of the territory by Governor Kibbey and a notable feature of the exercises was a stirring poem, written and delivered in person by John S. MeGroarty.
THE CAREER OF CAPTAIN O'NEILL
Wm. O. O'Neill was 38 years of age when he died in Cuba. He was born and reared in Washington and educated in Georgetown College. With a knowl- edge of typesetting and stenography as his capital, he came west to Arizona in 1879, to be a typesetter on the Phoenix Herald. He was printer and court stenographer for years, working in Arizona and New Mexico, at all times noted for reckless liberality that made him a friend of every man "down on his luck." "Buckey" was a designation early received for the fondness he displayed in "bucking the tiger,"-western parlance for gambling at faro. Most of the way on foot, he returned to Arizona from Santa Fé in 1881 and established him- self in Prescott, for a while connected with the Miner and later with his own paper, the Hoof and Horn. He was elected probate judge in 1886 and two years later became sheriff. During this latter term he became famous through the capture of four robbers, who had held up the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad train at Cañon Diablo in April, 1889. A short time later, O'Neill, becoming dissatisfied with the way the Mormons were assailed, turned from the republican party to populism. It is worthy of note that in that convention the successful opposition was led by R. E. Morrison, who later was one of the men most instru- mental in rearing a monument to O'Neill's memory. As a populist, O'Neill twice ran for Congress, and in one contest was nearly elected. With his death the party died in Arizona. At the time he left for Cuba, he was filling the office of mayor of Prescott. In spite of the fact that he gave away his loose
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cash to any cowboy or prospector who asked, he had become wealthy through the sale of an onyx mine at Mayer and of a copper mine near the Grand Canon.
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