The Rough Riders

“It was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, who scorned everything mean and base, and who possessed those robust and hardy qualities of body and mind, for the lack of which no merely negative virtue can ever atone.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Then there was Micah Jenkins, the Captain of Troop K, a gentle and courteous South Carolinian, on whom danger acted like wine. In action he was a perfect gamecock.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Again, it was proposed that we should go up the mountains and make our camps there.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Most of the men had simple souls. They could relate facts, but they said very little about what they dimly felt.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“We did everything possible to keep up the spirits of the men, but it was exceedingly difficult because there was nothing for them to do.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“I ended my statement to the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always does; he always does!””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Of course, really, those that stayed were entitled to precisely as much honor as those that went.””

— Theodore Roosevelt

“The dynamite gun was brought up to the right of the regimental line. It was more effective than the regular artillery because it was fired with smokeless powder, and as it was used like a mortar from behind the hill, it did not betray its presence, and those firing it suffered no loss. Every few shots it got out of order, and the Rough Rider machinists and those furnished by Lieutenant Parker--whom we by this time began to consider as an exceedingly valuable member of our own regiment--would spend an hour or two in setting it right.””

— Theodore Roosevelt