The sea-breeze is strong at Montauk, and this soon began to tell upon all who were sick, putting in them new life and vigor. Here every possible attention was given to those who were down, so that ere long many were up again and as well as ever.
When he had a little time to himself, Theodore Roosevelt would gather a few friends around him, and either go to the beach to bathe or go off on a long horseback ride. War was to him a thing of the past, and he was once more willing to become a private citizen as of old.
In those days the camp at Montauk was constantly crowded with visitors from New York City and elsewhere, who poured in upon every train. All of the soldiers who had been to Cuba were hailed as heroes, and had to tell their stories many times.
"Every soldier had a crowd following him," said one private. "The visitors wanted to know how we had fought, how we had been treated by the government, how things looked in Cuba, and a hundred and one other things. Most of the visitors, especially the ladies, wanted our autographs, and I had to write mine as many as forty times a day. I remember one of the men, a cowboy from Oklahoma, couldn't write, and he got so upset over this that every time somebody asked him for his autograph he would run away, saying he had forgotten to do something that he had been ordered to do. When I and some chums went down to New York to look around, all the folks stared at us, and many insisted on shaking hands and treating."
Colonel Roosevelt at Montauk Point.
(Photograph by Pach Bros., New York.)
The uniforms the Rough Riders had worn in Cuba were in rags, and many had boarded the transport barefooted. The rags were saved as trophies of the occasion, and many are still in existence.
At Camp Wykoff, as the place was called, there was a large hospital for the sick, and to this many came to do what they could for the sufferers, who were now given every possible attention. Among the visitors was Miss Helen Gould, who had used her ample means for the benefit of the sick all through the war, and who now continued to play the good Samaritan. President McKinley and many of his cabinet likewise visited the camp, and saw to it that everything in the hospital and out of it was as it should be. The sick were presented with the best of fruits and other things, and many ladies assisted the nurses by reading to the patients and by writing letters for them.
Now that they had nothing to do in the shape of fighting, many of the Rough Riders were anxious to get back to the wild West. Life in an ordinary camp did not suit them, and at every available opportunity they indulged in "horse play," working off many practical jokes upon each other.