THE COWBOY PRESIDENT

by Michael F. Blake

  Theodore went to New Jersey to visit his younger sister, Corrine, for several days without bringing Baby Lee. Oddly, in none of his letters home does he ask any questions about his daughter. Returning from New Jersey, Theodore took Baby Lee to Boston to visit her maternal grandparents, where he stayed for only a few days. Leaving Baby Lee with her grandparents, Theodore went to visit Henry Cabot Lodge at his summer home, where they commiserated over the backlash for their standing with the Republican nominee. Theodore told a Boston Herald reporter he would not bolt from the Republican Party, and endorsed James G. Blaine as the Republican nominee. “I am going back in a day or two to my Western ranches, as I do not expect to take any part in the campaign this fall,” he stated.3 After Alice’s death, Theodore held the opinion that his political life was over, yet on two different occasions he was approached to run for Congress. He declined. Although he liked to keep abreast of political news, for the present time he had had enough. In an August 12, 1884, letter to Bamie, he said he thought it would be “a good many years” before he ever returned to politics.4 The fire in the belly was not, for the moment, burning within. It is also likely that the uproar for supporting Blaine as nominee from reform-minded Republicans left him disenchanted with the political game.

  Sewall, Dow, and Theodore left New York City on July 28, arriving in Medora five days later. A week prior to their arrival, Sylvane and Merrifield had brought in a thousand head of cattle from Minnesota. Theodore cut a hundred head from the group and moved them to the Elkhorn site. Sewall and Dow, under the watchful eye of a man known as Captain Robbins, drove the herd north. Little is known about Robbins other than that he had earned his title from sailing ships, while his knowledge of cattle had been gained from various ranches in South America. He had been a trapper in the Badlands, then gone to work for Gregor Lang. Sewall dubbed Robbins “the man of many orders,” and they did not get along as they moved the cattle. Sewall’s only riding experience had come from riding logs down a flume in Maine. He and his horse were not a good match, causing Captain Robbins to lose his temper and yell at Sewall. Replying in his no-nonsense manner, the Maine logger said he was doing the best he could with a green horse, and he “wasn’t going to be found fault with.” Taken aback by Sewall’s comments, Robbins rode away.5 A few days later, after he had gotten to know the men from Maine, Robbins told Theodore that he had two good fellows. “That Sewall don’t calculate to bear anything. I spoke to him the other day, and he snapped me up so short I did not know what to make of it. But I don’t blame him. I did not speak to him as I ought,” he said.6 From that point on, Robbins and Sewall got along.

  Sewall did not share Theodore’s excitement for the area as cow country. In his plain-speaking way, Sewall said he liked the country, but doubted its ability for cattle ranching. Theodore, a bit surprised by his comment, told Sewall he didn’t “know anything” about it, adding that everyone said the land was perfect for cattle raising. Sewall agreed that he didn’t know much about cattle, but his old woodsman’s common sense was not so quick to endorse the area for running beef.7 The yearly rainfall average in the Badlands was about fifteen inches, compared to forty-plus inches in the Maine woods. Sewall couldn’t understand how cattle could survive on grass with such little rain. He said whoever had named the area the Badlands had “hit it about right,” and noted that the Little Missouri River was “the meanest apology for a frog pond I ever saw” in a letter to his brother Sam.

  Once they arrived at the ranch site, Sewall and Dow got to work felling cottonwood trees that would become the walls and floors of the new cabin. At one point, Theodore jumped in to help his friends. A local cowboy asked Dow one day how the cutting of trees was proceeding. “Well, Bill cut down fifty-three,” he noted, “I cut forty-nine, and the boss, the boss, he beavered down seventeen.” Overhearing the comment gave Theodore a good chuckle, as his trees looked like a beaver had done the work.8 Dow, Sewall, and Robbins also built a small shack to serve as living quarters during the winter.

  Having planned a hunting trip to the Bighorn Mountains, Theodore was itching to get started, but he had to wait until Merrifield secured more horses for their remuda. During this period, Theodore rode down to the Lang ranch for two days, then up to visit the Elkhorn site, where he received a letter from the Marquis claiming that the Elkhorn site belonged to him. The Marquis stated that in 1883, he had stocked the area with a thousand sheep, and the range, in the Marquis’s eyes, rightfully belonged to him. Theodore, like any cattleman, had little use for sheep, as they ate the grass down to the root, leaving nothing for the cattle. His response was blunt: The only sheep on the range were dead, and the Marquis had no claim. For Theodore, the matter was closed, although he warned Sewall and Dow to be careful.9

  Waiting for the additional horses, Theodore spent his days in the saddle, sometimes riding upwards of seventy-two miles from first light to sunset. It was during this period that most historians believe the famous “Mingusville affair” happened. Of all the adventures that occurred during his time in the Dakotas, this incident (and the one with the boat thieves) demonstrated the traits that would later make him well-known and greatly admired. In Mingusville, Theodore aptly demonstrated his “Walk softly and carry a big stick” maxim. Some question the veracity of this incident, especially those dour historians who wish to debunk the man and his actions, but it did happen. While Theodore had more than a healthy dose of self-confidence, he was not a bragger. True, he could take dramatic license with a story, like any seasoned storyteller, but, as biographer Edmund Morris has noted, Theodore “was almost infallibly truthful,” and his spirited tales “have found themselves documented down to the last detail.”10

  Riding for many miles on the lookout for stray horses, Theodore drifted across the border into Montana Territory. Mingusville, named after its first citizens, Minnie and Gus, was a tiny burg consisting of a shack that served as a railroad station, a section house, and a one-anda-half-story building called Nolan’s Hotel.11 The bottom floor of the hotel was a combination bar and dining room, while the upstairs offered a few rooms for rent. It was just barely a step above the Pyramid Park Hotel.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon, and the temperature, even in summer, was sufficiently cold to make camping outside unpleasant. Stabling his horse, Theodore was walking to the hotel when he heard two gunshots. Hesitating a moment, he debated whether or not to enter the establishment, when a gust of wind kicked up, reminding him that Nolan’s Hotel was preferable to sleeping under the stars. Walking inside, he found several men, including the bartender, “wearing the kind of smile worn by men making believe to like what they don’t like.” Standing in the center of the room was a “shabby individual,” wearing a broad hat and holding cocked pistols in each hand as he strutted up and down the saloon floor, a streak of blue words cascading from his mouth. The clock on the wall had two or three holes in its face, a demonstration of the man’s prowess with a sidearm. Theodore described him as not a “bad man” of the true man-killer type, “but he was an objectionable creature, a would-be bad man, a bully who for the moment was having things all his own way.” Spotting Theodore and his glasses, the bully called him “Four Eyes,” quickly adding that “Four Eyes is going to treat!” Theodore laughed with the others, hoping to pass it off as a jest, but it “merely made him more offensive.” Theodore took a chair at a table near the stove, hoping to avoid any further contact, but the drunken man, pistols in both hands, followed him. Leaning over the table, he expressed his views “in very foul language.” Standing with his heels close together, however, made him unsteady.12

  Talking about being involved in a fight, Theodore once said, “Don’t hit at all if you can help it; don’t hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep.”

  Repeating his demand that “Four Eyes” treat everyone, Theodore replied, looking past the braggart, “Well, if I’ve got to, I’ve got to.” Rising quickly, he struck with a hard right on one side of the man’
s jaw, followed by an equally quick left as he straightened out, and then hitting with his right once again. The man’s guns went off as he fell to the floor, striking his head on the corner of the bar, knocking him unconscious. Theodore was prepared to “drop on his ribs with my knees” if the man moved, but no further action was needed. Theodore took the bully’s guns away, and the torpid, would-be bad man was dragged out and locked in a shed. The following morning, when he gained his senses, he hopped on a freight train and disappeared into obscurity.13

  Some Roosevelt historians debate when this incident occurred. Nothing in any of Theodore’s diaries gives a date for the incident. Hermann Hagedorn claimed it happened in June 1884, while biographer Edmund Morris favors the summer of 1884. Author Carleton Putnam placed it in April 1885, and Clay S. Jenkinson offers a wide scope, placing it between June 1884 and June 1885. Unless more factual evidence surfaces, based on the facts at hand, this author believes it took place sometime in June 1884.

  Once the story became known among the cowboys and residents of the Badlands, respect for Theodore grew. He had proven himself in a moment when backing down would have made him appear weak, afraid, or, as the cowboys would say, “down in your boots.”14 He was no longer looked on as a joke, or an Eastern dude wanting to play at being a cowboy or cattleman. When the time came, he simply did what had to be done. He had demonstrated that he had what cowboys referred to as “sand.”15 In their eyes, he was one of them.

  Around this time, Theodore created a printed memorial for Alice. It was a combination of newspaper clippings and eulogies, privately published and distributed among family and close friends. His own tribute was titled “In Memory of My Darling Wife.”

  She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; as a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had always been in the sunshine; there had never come to her a single great sorrow; and none ever knew her who did not love and revere her for her bright, sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving, tender, and happy as a wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be but just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her—then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her.

  And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.16

  Although running a cattle ranch and spending days in the saddle kept him busy, writing this tribute only underscored Theodore’s depression. In much of his writings during this period, especially those describing his trips into the wilds of the Badlands, he repeatedly used the words lonely and melancholy. Perhaps, in some way, he saw the land as both a reflection of his feelings and, for the moment, an emotional anchor. One day Theodore shared his feelings with Sewall, stating he felt it didn’t make a difference what became of him, as he felt he had nothing to live for. Sewall replied that he did have a future ahead of him, and, more importantly, he had a daughter to live for. Theodore brushed aside Sewall’s comment, stating that he felt the child would be better off without him.

  “You won’t always feel as you do now,” Sewall told his friend, “and you won’t always be willing to stay here and drive cattle, because when you get to feeling differently you will want to get back among your friends and associates where you can do more and be more benefit to the world than you can here driving cattle. If you cannot think of anything else to do you can go home and start a reform. You could make a good reformer. You always want to make things better than worse.”17

  “In two or three days I start across country for the Bighorn Mountains, and then you will probably not hear from me for a couple of months,” Theodore wrote to Bamie on August 12. “I take a wagon, and six ponies, riding one of the latter. I now look like a regular cowboy dandy with all my equipment finished in the most expensive style.”18

  As the sun was just breaking over the far horizon, Theodore stepped into his saddle to ride out for the Bighorn Mountains in the Wyoming Territory. Bill Merrifield and Norman Lebo accompanied him on the trip. Merrifield, whom Theodore described as a “good-looking fellow who shoots and rides beautifully; a reckless, self-confident man,” was a bit too full of himself, making him unpopular with many in Medora. With this expedition, Merrifield appeared to be too quick to take credit as the leader of the party, claiming he taught Theodore “to do what he was told.” (It is highly doubtful anyone ever told Theodore to do what he was told.) Despite Merrifield’s faults, however, Theodore remained loyal to his friend. Norman Lebo was one of those unique characters found frequently in Western history. Hailing from Ohio, he was a Union veteran of the Civil War, showing up in the Badlands in 1883. At the age of fifty, he worked as a trapper, hunter, and blacksmith at the Custer Trail Ranch.19 A thickset man with a beard, Lebo was an innate wanderer. It was said he once left his family to hunt for a week, only to return three years later. He was allowed to accompany this hunting trip only after Theodore and Lebo’s wife reached an agreement: She would receive three years’ sustenance should her husband get the itchy foot to meander again.20 Theodore described Lebo as a “chatty, tough old plainsman, full of expedients and ready with both wit and hands.”

  Lebo drove the two-horse wagon, while Theodore and Merrifield rode out ahead. They were well fortified with supplies, including a tent for sleeping if they met with inclement weather. Theodore brought along enough weapons and ammunition to withstand a major Indian attack, including a Colt revolver, a ten-gauge shotgun, a Winchester repeating rifle, a .40 caliber Sharps rifle, and a .50 caliber Webley shotgun. He also had 150 rounds for his pistol, 300 cartridges for the ten-gauge, 1,000 rounds for the Winchester, 150 rounds for the Sharps, and 100 cartridges for the Webley shotgun. He wore his buckskin suit, with alligator boots, and also brought along heavy moccasins, sealskin chaps, a raccoon coat, a slicker, two flannel shirts, three light and three heavy suits of underwear, heavy socks, bandanas, and “ a little brandy and cholera mixture.”21

  Leaving Maltese Cross Ranch, they rode south, following the Little Missouri River. That afternoon, the men spotted black storm clouds in the northwest; within minutes, the skies opened, letting loose a massive cloudburst with strong winds and hail the size of pigeon eggs. Lebo and the wagon were caught in the open, while Theodore and Merrifield galloped to the edge of a washout and huddled with their horses against the windward bank until the storm passed. Theodore noted that even though it was August, “the air became very cold.”

  The rain continued throughout the day and evening in a varied routine of drizzle followed by a burst of strong showers, only to return to a drizzle. Roosevelt and Merrifield spent the night at the Lang cabin, leaving Lebo with the horses and wagon.22 Neither Merrifield or Lebo had ever been to the Bighorn Mountains, and they had only the scantest idea of their actual location. Luckily, on their second day, they encountered a group of cowboys herding cattle to Mingusville, and the head drover set them on the correct course. Theodore and Merrifield estimated that the town of Buffalo in Wyoming Territory was just less than three hundred miles distant. That night, as the rain continued, they slept in the wagon among the supply boxes. Coffee the following morning, August 20, was made from rainwater caught by their rubber blankets. The rain had moved on, but the saturated ground allowed the wagon to make only twelve miles.

  Over the next two days, however, with better weather, they covered forty-five miles, and by mid-afternoon on August 24, they had reached the Powder River in Montana Territory.23 That evening, Theodore wrote a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge, noting, “You must pardon the paper and general appearance of this letter, as I am writing out in camp, a hundred miles or so from any house; and indeed whether this letter is, or is not, ever delivered depends partly on Providence, and partly on the good will of an equally inscrutable personage, either a cowboy or a horse thief, whom we have just met, and who has volunteered to post it . . . I heartily enjoy this life, with its perfect freedom, for I am very fond of hunting, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of galloping over these r
olling, limitless prairies, rifle in hand, or winding my way among the barren, fantastic and grimly picturesque deserts of the so-called Bad Lands.”24

  Theodore noted in his diary on August 23: “Crossed the Little Beaver [Creek]. Travelled [sic] over great rolling plains bedded with short, brown grass; saw several herds of cattle, which have taken the place of the buffalo, whose carcasses can be seen everywhere.” By August 30, they had entered Wyoming Territory and had crossed the Powder River nine times in one day. By nightfall, they made camp at the mouth of Clear Creek. “Country very pretty,” Theodore wrote.25 They reached the town of Buffalo on September 1 (“quite a frontier town”), before heading to a sawmill on Crazy Woman Creek. From that point they left the wagon behind and all the supplies were transferred to pack animals for easier traveling in the mountains.

  “Slow progress,” Theodore noted on September 5, “as pack animals and loose ponies proved hard to drive. Camped on Widow Creek. Already pretty cold.” The following day they only made six miles over a “pretty rough trail.” Later that day, Theodore and Merrifield spotted fresh elk tracks, which eventually led to their finding a small herd; Theodore shot a cow and a bull calf. With the horses showing signs of fatigue, they didn’t break camp. As the horses grazed, Merrifield, Lebo, and Theodore staked out the elk hides and meat to dry. The following morning, they were greeted with a coating of snow on the ground. As the day wore on, it rained and sleeted. The three men stayed in their tent with “a roaring log fire in front of it.”26

  Supposedly, Theodore and Merrifield went to visit a camp of Cheyenne Indians after they crossed into Wyoming Territory. Merrifield made the decision to ride into the camp to see if there were any possible risks. Even though they had been subdued, eight years earlier, the Cheyenne had fought in the famous Battle at Little Bighorn against Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. Visiting the camp, Merrifield challenged the Indians to a shooting match, which both he and Theodore handily won. “You go among Indians and they find out you are superior to them in anything, especially shooting, they at once have a great deal of respect for you,” Merrifield reportedly stated.