Those April days of 1898 in Washington were full of an underlying current of excitement. Drifting toward war we certainly were, and within a very short few weeks the drift had become a fixed headway, and Captain Dewey, on the receipt of a certain telegram from a certain acting secretary of the navy, was to enter Manila Bay, and by that entrance, and by the taking of Cavite, to change forever the policy of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt had been criticised for the amount of ammunition used in practice by the gunners of the navy during the past spring. He knew only too well that the real extravagance in either army or navy comes from lack of foresight, and the fine marksmanship of the sailors and marines was to prove a feather in the cap of the young assistant secretary. Everything was bustle and hurry toward the end of April. Within a few days the assistant secretary was to become the lieutenant-colonel of the Rough Riders, or, as they were at first called, The First U. S. Volunteer Cavalry. Mr. McKinley offered to Mr. Roosevelt the colonelcy of the regiment, but he, with modesty and intelligence, refused the offer, knowing that he was not as well fitted by experience for the position as was his friend, Mr. McKinley’s physician, that gallant surgeon in the army, Leonard Wood, who had had as a younger man so much experience in the campaign against Geronimo. The two young men, within a year of each other in age, had been friends for some time, having many tastes in common, and the same stalwart attitude of unswerving Americanism. Their friendship had been cemented during the spring of 1898 by the fact that they felt that their views in connection with the mistakes of Spain in Cuba were very sympathetic. On the long tramps which they took together on those spring afternoons, they discussed the all-important question over and over again, and also discussed the possibility of raising a regiment of men from the fearless, hardy cowboys and backwoodsmen of the West. It was no sooner known that Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt were about to raise a regiment to go to Cuba than every sort and kind of individual flocked to their standard. The mobilization of the regiment took place in San Antonio, Texas. My brother writes to me on May 5, 1898, from Washington: