I suppose every man tends to brag about his regiment; but it does seem to me that there never was a regiment better worth bragging about than ours.  Wood was an exceptional commander, of great power, with a remarkable gift for organization.  The rank and file were as fine natural fighting men as ever carried a rifle or rode a horse in any country or any age.  We had a number of first-class young fellows from the East, most of them from colleges like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; but the great majority of the men were Southwesterners, from the then territories of Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Arizona, and New Mexico.  They were accustomed to the use of firearms, accustomed to taking care of themselves in the open; they were intelligent and self-reliant; they possessed hardihood and endurance and physical prowess; and, above all, they had the fighting edge, the cool and resolute fighting temper.  They went into the war with full knowledge, having deliberately counted the cost.  In the great majority of cases each man was chiefly anxious to find out what he should do to make the regiment a success.  They bought, first and last, about 800 copies of the cavalry drill regulations and studied them industriously.  Such men were practically soldiers to start with, in all the essentials.  It is small wonder that with them as material to work upon the regiment was raised, armed, equipped, drilled, sent on trains to Tampa, embarked, disembarked, and put through two victorious offensive—­not defensive—­fights in which a third of the officers and one-fifth of the men were killed or wounded, all within sixty days.  It is a good record, and it speaks well for the men of the regiment; and it speaks well for Wood.[*]

[*] To counterbalance the newspapers which ignorantly and indiscriminately praised all the volunteers there were others whose blame was of the same intelligent quality.  The New York Evening Post, on June 18, gave expression to the following gloomy foreboding:  “Competent observers have remarked that nothing more extraordinary has been done than the sending to Cuba of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, known as the ‘rough riders.’  Organized but four weeks, barely given their full complement of officers, and only a week of regular drill, these men have been sent to the front before they have learned the first elements of soldiering and discipline, or have even become acquainted with their officers.  In addition to all this, like the regular cavalry, they have been sent with only their carbines and revolvers to meet an enemy armed with long-range
     rifles.  There have been few cases of such military
cruelty in our military annals.”  A week or so after this not wholly happy prophecy was promulgated, the “cruelty” was consummated, first at Las Guasimas and then in the San Juan fighting.

Wood was so busy getting the regiment ready that when I reached San Antonio he turned most of the drilling