10. At the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, held to celebrate four hundred years since Columbus discovered the new world for Europeans, and only three years after the census announced that the western frontier was closed, Frederick Jackson Turner spoke on how the advance of Americans through the frontiers of the American West helped form the distinctive character of the American nation and the American people. American self-reliance, individualism, swift acceptance of change, even what would be mistakenly referred to as “Yankee” ingenuity, came from this movement of the country to its “Manifest Destiny.” Frederick J. Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt, 1921), http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/turner.
11. SMAC-2, pp. 1003–1004 (testimony of Kilburn).
12. SMAC-2, pp. 1193–94 (testimony of William Jacob Rappe).
13. SMAC-2, p. 1004 (testimony of Kilburn).
14. SMAC-3, pp. 2380–81 (testimony of Combe).
15. SMAC-2, p. 1071 (testimony of Lt. Edwin Potter Thompson).
16. SMAC-3, p. 2383 (testimony of Combe); and SD-2, p. 150 (affidavit of Combe).
17. SMAC-3, p. 2383 (testimony of Combe).
18. SMAC-3, p. 2381 (testimony of Combe). Mrs. Evans was not the only one who may have been assaulted that day. President Roosevelt, while attending church where he lived in Oyster Bay, New York, was bedeviled by a Mrs. Eliza Case, also known as Mrs. L. Esac (“Case” spelled backward). The evidently disturbed lady tried to approach him three times during the service only to be restrained by the Secret Service. John Duffy, one of the church's ushers, also stepped in to keep her back, and his reward was to have her later seek a warrant for his arrest for assault. In those simpler times—even when the incident involved a president who came to the White House after the assassination of his predecessor—because Mrs. Case/Esac apparently intended no physical harm, at the end of the service and when the Roosevelts were safely away, she was let go. “Woman Tried to Halt President at Church,” New York Times, August 12, 1906, p. 1.
19. SMAC-3, p. 2383 (testimony of Combe).
20. This imprecise reference by witnesses to compass points caused no end of confusion to investigators not from Brownsville and to the author of this book.
[Senator Lodge] Q: This was on Elizabeth street, and near the corner of Elizabeth and Thirteenth streets?
[Dr. Charles H. Thorn] A: Yes, sir. It is about 15 or 20 feet from the lamp-post.
[Senator Warner]: Calling those streets, as we have been pleased to do here, running north and south—those are not the exact points on the compass.
A: No, Sir.
Q: It would be a half a block north and a block west of your house, where you found him?
A: No; that would not be north; it would be almost due west of my house.
Senator Foraker: You are counting from the alley?
[Senator Warner]: Pardon, I was facing your house on the alley. Your house faces on Elizabeth Street?
A: Yes, Sir.
Q: That is my mistake, Doctor. It was half a block west, or north as we are calling it now?
A: North would be up—
Q: We are calling these streets north and south [indicating on map].
The Chairman [Senator Warren]: Gentlemen, let me say now all these witnesses are confused about the points of the compass, and if you would call attention to that [north] arrow there [on the map] it might save some trouble. What we call north is really northwest, and every witness has to have it explained to him.
SMAC-3, pp. 2105–2106.
21. Ibid., p. 2382 (testimony of Combe).
22. Ibid., p. 2383.
23. S. Doc. No. 59-155, vol. 11, pt. 1 (2d sess. 1907) (hereafter cited as SD-1), p. 441 (testimony of George Rendall before Brownsville Citizens’ Committee).
24. SMAC-3, p. 2033 (testimony of G. Rendall).
25. Partial synopsis of SD-1, p. 440 (testimony of G. Rendall); and SMAC-3, pp. 2037–40 (same).
26. SMAC-3, p. 2037 (testimony of G. Rendall).
27. SD-2, p. 19 (testimony of Elizabeth Rendall).
28. Ibid.
29. SD-2, pp. 15–16 (testimony of G. Rendall).
30. Ibid., p. 16.
31. SMAC-2, p. 938 (testimony of Pvt. Joseph Howard).
32. Ibid., p. 939.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 940.
35. Ibid. (response of Howard to question by Sen. Foraker).
36. John D. Weaver, The Brownsville Raid (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), p. 36, citing Penrose's testimony at his court-martial, Affray at Brownsville, Tex…. Proceedings of a General Court-Martial…in the Case of Maj. Charles W. Penrose, Twenty-Fifth United States Infantry, S. Doc. No. 60-402 (1908), p. 1153 (testimony of Penrose). Hairston remembered it differently: “I don't know; I think somebody is firing on the quarters.” S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 4 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-1), p. 742 (testimony of Pvt. Charley Hairston).
37. SMAC-1, pp. 740–42 (testimony of Hairston).
38. Ibid., p. 286 (testimony of 1st Sgt. Mingo Sanders).
39. Ibid., pp. 1281, 1208–84 (testimony of Pvt. Edward Johnson).
40. Ibid., pp. 1281–91.
41. SD-2, p. 36; and SMAC-3, pp. 2790–803.
42. SD-2, pp. 50–52. See also SD-1, p. 449 (testimony of Herbert Elkins before Brownsville Citizens’ Committee).
43. SMAC-2, pp. 2304–5 (testimony of Dr. Charles H. Thorn).
44. Dr. Thorn's narrative and his quotes can be found at SMAC-3, pp. 2101–11, and SD-2, pp. 54–57.
45. SD-2, p. 73 (testimony of S. C. Moore).
46. Mrs. Moore heard the same words, except when she repeated them, she said nothing about “on a horse” and refused to speak the words “son of a bitch” because “it was not very nice to be repeated.” Ibid., p. 73.
47. Ibid.
48. SMAC-3, p. 2930 (testimony of Hale Odin).
49. Ibid. (testimony of H. Odin); SD-2, p. 83 (testimony of Ethel Odin).
50. SMAC-3, p. 2932 (testimony of H. Odin).
51. SD-2, pp. 75–88.
52. Ibid., pp. 88–93.
53. Ibid., p. 57.
54. This was the second time Dominguez had been shot in the line of duty. He was the policeman wounded years earlier, as remembered by Dr. Thorn.
55. SMAC-3, p. 2484 (testimony of Joe Crixell). But Crixell looked to get a piece of the action another way. He helped a soldier and a former soldier open their own bar, just for the soldier business. He advanced the cost of the business license and sold them beer. Ibid., p. 2486.
56. Paulino Preciado, one of the four men in the Ruby, remembers Crixell using the word “Negroes” and not “niggers.” Ibid., p. 2301 (testimony of Paulino Preciado). It is likely Crixell's memory is the better one. He was a crude man, and when he testified before the Senate Military Affairs Committee, he used “nigger” quite freely. If he felt no constraint in this formal setting, it is likely he felt none when shouting across to the Ruby Saloon. It is an open question just how poorly Preciado spoke English (he had lived in Brownsville for twenty years). His testimony before the Senate Military Affairs Committee and in statements for other investigations required the assistance of an interpreter. “Negroes” may have been an imprecise translation or a hesitancy by the interpreter to say “niggers.”
57. Preciado was sure Natus's last words were in Spanish. Ibid. Weaver quotes Natus in Spanish, “Ay Dios!” Weaver, Brownsville Raid, p. 47.
58. SMAC-3, pp. 2380–85 (testimony of Combe).
59. SD-2, p. 30 (testimony of James P. McDonnel).
60. SD-2, p. 45 (testimony of Katie Leahy).
61. SD-2, p. 24 (testimony of Jose Martinez).
62. SD-2, p. 46 (testimony of Leahy).
63. SD-2, p. 53 (testimony of Herbert Elkins).
64. SD-2, pp. 42–43 (testimony of Ygnacio Garza).
CHAPTER THREE: A SPECIAL REQUEST
1. “News from Washington. Our Special Washington Dispatches,” New York Times, May 27, 1863.
> 2. “Black Sailors and Soldiers in the War of 1812,” The War of 1812, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/essays/black-soldier-and-sailors-war/ (accessed April 28, 2014).
3. “The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry,” United States Civil War, accessed April 29, 2014, http://www.us-civilwar.com/54th.htm.
4. Oswald Garrison Villard, “The Negro in the Regular Army,” Atlantic Monthly 91 (1903): 721.
5. “Brief History,” Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, http://buffalosoldiersmuseum.com/cms/?cat=9 (accessed April 29, 2014).
6. “7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment,” GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/7-10cav.htm (accessed April 29, 2014).
7. Arlen L. Fowler, The Black Infantry in the West, 1869–1891 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), p. 38.
8. Capt. N. H. Davis, letter to the inspector general, October 1875, Letters Received, Inspector General's Office, file D 113, Records of the Office of the Inspector General (Army), National Archives; and Col. G. L. Andrews, letter to the assistant adjutant general, Department of Texas, October 4, 1875, Letters Sent, Fort Davis, Texas, Records of United States Army Continental Commands, 1821–1920, National Archives, cited in Fowler, Black Infantry in the West, p. 22.
9. Fowler, Black Infantry, pp. 48–51.
10. William McNeil, Black Baseball out of Season: Pay for Play outside of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007), p. 52.
11. John H. Nankivell and Quintard Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment: History of the Twenty-Fifth United States Infantry, 1869–1926 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), pp. 167–68. Between 1914 and 1920, Bullet Joe Rogan played for the Twenty-Fifth Infantry. He left the army to play ball with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League (on the recommendation of a young Casey Stengel) until 1938. Like Babe Ruth, he was a top pitcher and a fantastic hitter. His win-loss record was 116–50, and his lifetime ERA was 2.59. His career batting average was .338, and in 1922 he led the Negro National League with sixteen home runs. With him, the Monarchs won three consecutive pennants between 1923 and 1925 and won the Negro League World Series in 1924. He played in the first night baseball game in history on April 29, 1930. In 1998, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. “Rogan, Bullet,” National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, http://baseballhall.org/hof/rogan-bullet (accessed April 29, 2014).
12. George Armstrong Custer turned down lieutenant colonel's rank in the black Ninth Cavalry for that of only captain in the Seventh Cavalry. Fowler, Black Infantry, pp. 115–16, cited in An Officer and a Gentleman: The Military Career of Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper, by Lowell D. Black and Sara H. Black (Dayton, OH: Lora, 1985), p. 4.
13. Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, p. 9.
14. Cited in Ibid., p. 62.
15. “Sgt. Mingo Sanders,” Riders of the Bicycle Corps (blog), http://bicyclecorpsriders.blogspot.com/2009/01/mingo-sanders.html (accessed April 29, 2014).
16. Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, pp. 60–62; and William Hangen and Terra Hangen, “Steel Steeds,” Military Officer, February 2004. These resources were used extensively by the author for the story of the biking Buffalo Soldiers.
17. H. W. Brands, TR: The Last Romantic (New York: Basic Books, 1997), pp. 325–26.
18. Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, p. 65.
19. Otto J. Lindenmeyer, Black and Brave: The Black Soldier in America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970), pp. 69–70.
20. Moss the Goat went to Cuba with it, where he would receive commendations for bravery. In the subsequent Philippine Insurrection, the army awarded him the Silver Star. He finished his career as a soldier commanding the 367th Infantry in World War I. On April 14, 1941, he was killed in a traffic accident in New York and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. “Lt. James A. Moss,” Riders of the Bicycle Corps (blog), http://bicyclecorpsriders.blogspot.com/2009/01/lt-james-moss.html (accessed April 29, 2014).
21. See Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979), p. 612, for a sample of these reactions.
22. It took more than a century. The accepted story is that he badgered the army to get the Rough Riders, and indeed all other soldiers, out of Cuba quickly when the war ended. Too many of them were coming down with malaria and other tropical diseases and dying. Regular army officers in Cuba were reluctant to force the issue, fearing its effect on their military careers. Roosevelt, his time in the army over as soon as the Rough Riders would be disbanded, had no such qualms. Army brass was so irritated at Roosevelt, they slow-walked and then quietly killed the recommendation that he get the Medal of Honor.
23. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long, whose absence allowed Roosevelt to issue prewar orders to the navy, wrote in his diary, “He thinks he is following his highest ideal, whereas, in fact, as without exception every one of his friends advises him, he is acting like a fool. And yet, how absurd all this will sound if, by some turn of fortune, he should accomplish some great thing and strike a very high mark.” Virgil C. Jones, Roosevelt's Rough Riders (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), p. 19.
24. According to the report of Captain Henry Rose Loughborough, Company B, Twenty-Fifth Infantry. T. G. Steward, The Colored Regulars in the United States Army (New York: Arno, 1969), p. 188.
25. “The Battles at El Caney & San Juan Hill,” Home of Heroes, http://www.homeofheroes.com/wallofhonor/spanish_am/10_sanjuan.html (accessed April 30, 2014,). See also A. C. M. Azoy, Charge! The Story of the Battle of San Juan Hill (New York: Longmans, Green, 1961), pp. 34–35.
26. The unyielding officer was a white captain with the Ninth Cavalry, a Buffalo Soldier regiment. Azoy, Charge!, p. 136.
27. The author first saw this original photo at the annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in Tampa, Florida, in October 2009 in a presentation by Prof. Quintard Taylor, University of Washington.
28. Steward, Colored Regulars in the United States Army, p. 132.
29. The pluckiness of the men of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry that day is shown in a story told by General Lawton. The morning after the fight for El Caney, he and another officer were watching soldiers marching past them as they redeployed for what was expected to be the advance on Santiago. Just before dawn, the men of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry came along, and one in particular, a tall corporal, was laughing and talking as he moved passed. With him was an injured soldier walking with a limp. The talkative corporal was carrying his own weapon, ammunition, blanket, and haversack, as well as those of the injured man. Lugging all of this weight, the corporal somehow found room to carry his company's mascot dog.
“Here, corporal,” the other officer yelled out, “didn't you march all last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And didn't you fight all day?”
“Sure, sir.”
“And haven't you been marching since 10 o'clock tonight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then, what in thunder are you carrying that dog for?”
“Why, the dog is tired,” the corporal answered.
Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, p. 83.
30. General Orders No. 19, Headquarters of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry, near Santiago de Cuba, August 11, 1898, folder 6, box 6, William Monroe Trotter/Guardian of Boston Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
31. Lindenmeyer, Black and Brave, p. 70.
32. Ibid., p. 71.
33. Ibid.
34. Sanders mentions it in his reenlistment application affidavit after the Brownsville Incident. “Mingo Sanders out Now, Fed Roosevelt's Men,” New York Times, December 22, 1906. See also Mary Church Terrell, “A Sketch of Mingo Sanders,” Voice of the Negro, March 1907; and Affidavit J to Constitution League Report, Brownsville Affray, Report of Secretary of War, and Additional Testimony, S. Doc. No. 59-155, pt. 1 (1907) (hereafter cited as SD-1), p. 227, which says, “That upon the Twenty-Fifth day of
June, about 9 or 10 miles from Siboney, in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt came to him [Mingo Sanders], and at his [Roosevelt's] special request, his company shared their supply of hard-tack with his command.”
35. His uneasiness was well-founded. Japan took its time but by the 1930s was well on its way to creating a Japanese empire in the Far East. Japan shared Roosevelt's foresight about the Philippines and coveted the islands for itself. While Pearl Harbor still was in flames, its forces began their assault on the Philippines. See also Philip J. McFarland, Mark Twain and the Colonel: Samuel L. Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Arrival of a New Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), p. 129.
36. Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, pp. 90, 100.
37. Ibid., p. 101.
38. 1st Lt. William T. Schenck, letter to the Denver Daily News, undated, cited in ibid., p. 103.
39. SD-1, p. 227 (affidavit of Sanders); “Mingo Sanders, out Now, Fed Roosevelt's Men,” New York Times, December 22, 1906.
40. Cited in Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, p. 115.
41. Roosevelt was a founder of the New York Zoological Society, the predecessor to the Bronx Zoo, where nascent herds of buffalo were bred and protected. Brinkley points out one of his reasons for forming the zoo was to have a place to put the buffalo. Noting Roosevelt's “enviable record as a promoter of measures for the protection of wildlife,” the society mentioned his prohibition of hunting or trapping on Fort Niobrara. “Ex-President Roosevelt's Record in Wild-Life Preservation,” New York Zoological Society Bulletin, nos. 30–36 (July 1908–October 1909): 510.
42. Brinkley's book is thorough and beautifully written and a “must-read” for anyone interested in the history of the American environmental movement.
43. Nankivell and Taylor, Buffalo Soldier Regiment, p. 119. Company A earlier had been sent to Wyoming to shepherd Indians onto the Washakie Reservation. See also SD-1, p. 309. It would never get to Brownsville. On September 7, 1906, it joined its sister companies at Fort Reno, Oklahoma.
44. Ulysses Simpson Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (New York: Dover, 1995), p. 29.
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt Page 46
