ising of three
cavalry regiments from among the wild riders and riflemen of the
Rockies and the Great Plains. During Wood's service in the Southwest
he had commanded not only regulars and Indian scouts, but also white
frontiersmen. In the Northwest I had spent much of my time, for many
years, either on my ranch or in long hunting trips, and had lived and
worked for months together with the cowboy and the mountain hunter,
faring in every way precisely as they did.

Secretary Alger offered me the command of one of these regiments. If I
had taken it, being entirely inexperienced in military work, I should
not have known how to get it equipped most rapidly, for I should have
spent valuable weeks in learning its needs, with the result that I
should have missed the Santiago campaign, and might not even have had
the consolation prize of going to Porto Rico. Fortunately, I was wise
enough to tell the Secretary that while I believed I could learn to
command the regiment in a month, that it was just this very month
which I could not afford to spare, and that therefore I would be quite
content to go as Lieutenant-Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel.

This was entirely satisfactory to both the President and Secretary,
and, accordingly, Wood and I were speedily commissioned as Colonel and
Lieutenant-Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. This
was the official title of the regiment, but for some reason or other
the public promptly christened us the "Rough Riders." At first we
fought against the use of the term, but to no purpose; and when
finally the Generals of Division and Brigade began to write in formal
communications about our regiment as the "Rough Riders," we adopted
the term ourselves.

The mustering-places for the regiment were appointed in New Mexico,
Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory. The difficulty in organizing
was not in selecting, but in rejecting men. Within a day or two after
it was announced that we were to raise the regiment, we were literally
deluged with applications from every quarter of the Union. Without the
slightest trouble, so far as men went, we could have raised a brigade
or even a division. The difficulty lay in arming, equipping, mounting,
and disciplining the men we selected. Hundreds of regiments were being
called into existence by the National Government, and each regiment
was sure to have innumerable wants to be satisfied. To a man who knew
the ground as Wood did, and who