Twice his father and mother took him to Europe in the hope of improving his health. A playmate remembers him as “a tall, thin lad with bright eyes, and legs like pipe-stems.” He was not able to go to school regularly, so missed the fun of being with other boys. Most of his studying was done at home under private teachers, and in this way he prepared for college.
Theodore Roosevelt spent four years at Harvard University and was graduated in 1880. It had been his aim to develop good health and a strong body, as well as to succeed in his studies. This was a struggle, but he won the fight, and, in speaking of himself at the time of his leaving college, he says: “I determined to be strong and well and did everything to make myself so. By the time I entered Harvard, I was able to take part in whatever sports I liked. I wrestled and sparred, and I ran a 39 great deal, and, although I never came in first, I got more out of the exercise than those who did, because I immensely enjoyed it and never injured myself.”
Some time after leaving college, the frontier life of the Wild West called him. The lonely and pathless plains thrilled him, and he became a ranchman. His new home was a log house called Elkhorn Ranch in North Dakota. Here he raised his own chickens, grew his own vegetables, and got fresh meat with his gun. He bought cattle until he had thousands of head, all bearing the brand of a Maltese Cross. No fences confined these cattle, and sometimes they would wander for hundreds of miles. Twice a year it was the custom to round up all the Maltese herds for the purpose of branding the calves and “cutting out” the cattle which were fat enough to be shipped to market.
On these round-ups, Theodore Roosevelt did his share of the work. Often this meant he rode fifty miles in the morning before finding the cattle. By noon he and his cowboys would have driven many herds into one big herd moving towards a wagon that had come out from the ranch. This wagon brought food for the men, and Mr. Roosevelt has remarked, “No meals ever tasted better than those eaten out on the prairie.”
Dinner over, the work of branding and selecting could be done. Sometimes Mr. Roosevelt spent twenty-four hours at a stretch in the saddle, dismounting only to get a fresh pony. He did everything that his men 40 did, and endured the hardship as well as the pleasure of ranch life. Often during the round-up he slept in the snow, wrapped in blankets, with no tent to shield him from the freezing cold.
Although he kept Elkhorn Ranch for twelve years he gradually quit the cattle business and spent more and more time in New York City where he entered political life.
But his vacations always found him in the West where his greatest pleasure was hunting. He hunted all over his ranch and through the Rocky Mountains beyond. Frequently he would go off alone with only a slicker, some hardtack, and salt behind his saddle, and his horse and rifle as his only companions. Once he had no water to drink for twenty-four hours and then had to use some from a muddy pool. But such adventures were sport for him, and he liked to see how much exposure he could stand. Then he would return to the East, rested and refreshed.
When war between Spain and the United States was declared in 1898, Mr. Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He resigned this office, saying, “I must get into the fight myself. It is a just war and the sooner we meet it, the better. Now that it has come I have no right to ask others to do the fighting while I stay at home.”
He decided to raise a regiment made up of men he had known in the West, together with adventure loving Easterners, and call them his “Rough Riders.” He 41 borrowed the name from the circus. The idea set the country aflame, and within a month the regiment was raised, equipped, and on Cuban soil. There was never a stranger group of men gathered together. Cowboys and Indians rode with eastern college boys and New York policemen. They were all ready to follow their leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt. They were full-blooded Americans. They believed in their country, and they obeyed their leader, not because they had to do so but because it was right that they should obey.
The most important battle in which the Rough Riders engaged was that of San Juan Hill, July 1 and 2, 1898. This helped to decide the war. Roosevelt led the charge. His horse became entangled in a barb wire fence, but he jumped off, ran ahead, and still kept in front of his men. He lived up to his advice, “When in doubt, go ahead.”