Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt by Mark Will-Weber

Author:Mark Will-Weber [Will-Weber, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621572435
Publisher: Regnery Publishing

SELF-DESCRIBED ASS

If TR’s offer to buy a round was a good gesture in the aftermath of the Albany affair, he was perhaps a bit overzealous when he wanted to buy a round—a rather big round, in fact—in San Antonio, Texas, in 1898, during training camp. The recipients of TR’s generosity were the troopers of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment—the men who would become the much-storied Rough Riders of San Juan Hill fame during the Spanish-American War in Cuba.

In Roosevelt’s defense, the weather in Texas in mid-May was already scorching and, therefore, quite capable of provoking a thirst for which warm and fetid canteen water simply had no answer. After a mounted drill that the men must have performed to TR’s satisfaction, he sought to reward them. Allowing the men to dismount at the Riverside Fairgrounds, their leader festively announced that they could drink “all the beer they want, which I will pay for!”

This declaration obviously made Roosevelt quite popular with his Rough Riders. But his more experienced commander, Colonel Leonard Wood, knew the enthusiastic New Yorker might later regret this blatant generosity. That evening Roosevelt was requested to appear before Wood, who sternly pointed out the potential pitfalls of rubbing shoulders with enlisted men, particularly when that fraternization was lubricated with alcohol. An embarrassed Teddy—in a rare moment of silence—snapped off a salute and then abruptly left headquarters. In a few minutes, however, he sheepishly returned before Wood and readily acknowledged his mistake:

“Sir, I consider myself the damnedest ass within ten miles of this camp,” declared the future president. “Good-night, sir.”

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