Leonard Wood (1860-1927), American Army officer and colonial administrator, was an ardent advocate of military preparedness.

A doctor's son, Leonard Wood was born in Winchester, N.H., on Oct. 9, 1860. After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1884, he joined the Army Medical Corps as a contract surgeon. While advancing to the grade of captain, which he reached in 1891, he proved himself an effective troop leader in the West and won the friendship of influential generals and politicians. Stationed in Washington after 1895, he was part of the White House inner circle of presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley and made friends in 1897 with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt.

When the Spanish-American War began in 1898, Wood and Roosevelt raised the famous "Rough Riders." As colonel of the regiment, Wood permanently left the Medical Corps for troop command. After participating in the Santiago de Cuba campaign, he was commissioned a...