Description
The Rough Riders is a documentary about the birth of America as a world power, and a personal account by Theodore Roosevelt (TR) of his exploits during the Spanish-American War. The Rough Riders is also a chronicle of the healing of America’s deep Civil War wounds. TR vividly recalls the reception he and his “Rough Riders” received as they marched through the South on their way to war: “Everywhere we saw the Stars and Stripes, and everywhere we were told, half-laughingly, by grizzled ex-Confederates that they had never dreamed in the bygone days of bitterness to greet the old flag as they now were greeting it, and to send their sons, as now they were sending them, to fight and die under it.” With great humility, TR recalls “a very touching incident” at the regiment’s improvised open-air hospital after the fighting at Las Guasimas. “They did not groan, and made no complaint, trying to help one another,” TR observed. “One of them suddenly began to hum, ‘My Country ’tis of Thee, ‘ and one by one the others joined in the chorus, which swelled out through the tropic woods, where the victors lay in camp besides their dead.” Often brash and always to the point, with great attention to detail, TR takes the reader to where the fighting is at its thickest: “At the front!” His words are inspiring, instructional, and prophetic. They are as alive with lessons for today as they were when they were written more than a century ago. The Rough Riders is the foremost historically accurate, personal account of the Spanish-American War. It is a testimonial to the valor of the “Rough Riders.” As Commander of the “Rough Riders” and later as President, TR distinguished America above all others in the realm of nation-states, and in so doing secured his place in the annals of American history. TR’s life was woven of courage and American initiative, ingenuity, and ideals, without which America the world power would not have been built. From the Introduction by Judge Hal Moroz, U.S. Army Retired
