Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/581

 558 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS the same type of courage and manliness and became close friends. They wrestled, boxed, played golf, and rode horse- back with each other, and when the Spanish-American War broke out decided to get into it as comrades-at-arms. The colonelcy of a volunteer cavalry regiment to be raised was tendered Roosevelt. He said : ^^Let Leonard Wood be colonel. He knows all about rais- ing and equipping a regiment. I will be content to serve under him as lieutenant-colonel, until I can prove myself worthy of a higher position. ' ' Out on the plains of Texas and the Southwest, where Wood had fought and Roosevelt punched cattle, the two pounded together a dare-devil company of cavalrymen, who made themselves famous at San Juan Hill. Wood outdid the shrewdest and most experienced army officer in the quickness and completeness with which he got up the troop and fitted it out. The Rough Riders went into service right away, and stayed in the thi(& of it. Colonel Wood was made Brigadier-Gteneral of Volunteers, and at San Juan Hill commanded one of the two brigades that composed General Joe Wheeler's cavalry division. Throughout the war General Wood maintained characteristic democracy toward his men, commanding them to no task he would not do himself, and sharing all their hardships. He was in touch with every detail of camp life, even attending frequently in person the digging of trenches. Writing to Secretary of War Alger, General Shafter spoke of Generals Wood and Lawton as the two best men in the army. When the war was over Wood was made governor of Santiago province and set to work on a job of cleaning up that would have staggered Hercules. for two centuries. On the 20th of July, 1898, when General Wood landed at the city gates, the streets and courts and houses had come to the height of filth and wretchedness. The war had paralyzed its power to feed itself. He set out imme- diately on a tour of inspection and vultures flew up about him from gorging on human bodies. Little children with distend-
 * Dirt*' and the city of ** Santiago'* had been synonymous