Taking on Theodore Roosevelt

by Harry Lembeck

  45. “Juneteenth,” Texas State Library and Archives Commission, last modified January 15, 2013, https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/juneteenth.html (accessed September 18, 2014).

  46. US War Department, Office of the Adjutant General, Military Secretary's Office, Brownsville File, July 7, 1906.

  47. In his testimony before the Senate Military Affairs Committee, Dr. Edger thought Negro soldiers already had been there four times (which would make the Twenty-Fifth Infantry's turn the fifth time). Affray at Brownsville, Tex.: Hearings Before the Committee on Military Affairs…, S. Doc. No. 60-402 (1908), pt. 5, p. 1109. A sergeant in the departing Twenty-Sixth Infantry testified that an unidentified Brownsville resident told him it would be the fourth time. Ibid., pt. 6, p. 2949.

  48. Wreford's letter is excerpted in Ann J. Lane, The Brownsville Affair: National Crisis and Black Reaction (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 14.

  49. Benjamin J. Edger, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, February 16, 1907, box 63, Joseph Foraker Papers, Cincinnati History Library and Archives.

  50. S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 4, pp. 1945–46.

  51. Adair statement, Lovering, Report, SD-1, p. 479.

  52. John D. Weaver, The Brownsville Raid (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), pp. 27–28.

  CHAPTER FOUR: ON THE GROUND

  1. Affray at Brownsville, Tex.: Hearings Before the Comm. on Military Affairs…, S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 5 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-2), p. 1929 (testimony of Maj. Charles Penrose).

  2. Ibid., p. 1925.

  3. Ibid., p. 1926. The transcript misspells the sentry's name as “Herston.”

  4. Ibid., p. 1691.

  5. Ibid., pp. 1927, 1929.

  6. S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 6 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-3), p. 2598 (testimony of Maj. Augustus Blocksom).

  7. SMAC-2, p. 1930 (testimony of Penrose).

  8. SMAC-3, p. 2384 (testimony of Dr. Frederick J. Combe).

  9. Ibid., p. 2385.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid., p. 2386.

  12. SMAC-2, p. 1829 (testimony of Capt. Samuel Lyon).

  13. SMAC-3, p. 2387 (testimony of Penrose).

  14. SMAC-2, p. 2388 (testimony of Combe).

  15. Ibid., p. 2389.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid.

  18. There was a street lamp on the southwest corner of Washington and Thirteenth Streets. Depending on where exactly Combe was standing, it was between 150 and 175 feet away. There was another street lamp on the southwest corner of Elizabeth and Thirteenth Streets, which would have been a little farther away. See map of Brownsville prepared for the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, in Summary Discharge or Mustering Out of Regiments or Companies: Message from the President of the United States…, S. Doc. No. 59-155, vol. 11 (2d sess. 1907).

  19. SMAC-3, p. 2387 (testimony of Combe).

  20. Ibid., pp. 2391, 2394.

  21. Another was the dairyman Albert Billingsley, characterized by John Weaver as “loud talking [and] quick tempered.” John D. Weaver, The Brownsville Raid (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), p. 172. He had been vocally upset since the alleged assault on Mrs. Evans, and the shooting made him even more so. In his own testimony before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, Billingsley acknowledged he had been reprimanded and warned to stay quiet by Mayor Combe but quickly denied the allegation he wanted to attack the fort or any such action. He called the idea “foolishness.” SMAC-3, p. 2479. He even claimed to welcome the black soldiers of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry when he heard they were coming. They would be good for business since “they were good milk customers” and did not spend their money in saloons. Ibid., p. 2482. Of course, one reason for this might have been the saloons were segregated and they were not allowed in.

  22. SMAC-3, p. 2392 (testimony of Combe).

  23. SMAC-2, p. 1935 (testimony of Rentfro Creager). See also Weaver, Brownsville Raid, p. 86.

  24. SMAC-3, p. 2340 (testimony of Combe).

  25. Ibid., p. 2341.

  26. Creager was a poor choice for Penrose to seek advice from about an impartial investigation, regardless of what Creager may have learned when he got back to Brownsville that morning. The day before, Creager acted as Lon Evans's lawyer and accompanied him to the meeting with Mayor Crowe and Penrose after Mrs. Evans accused a soldier of assault. Fred Tate, the customs official who used a pistol to crack the head of Private James Newton for not walking around Mrs. Tate on the sidewalk, also consulted with Creager. SMAC-3, p. 2840 (testimony of Rentfro B. Creager). As US Commissioner, Creager was a federal official appointed to the position by the US District Court, and the day after the shooting the potential involvement of the court could not be excluded. Penrose might not have realized the potential conflict of interest; Creager should have. Any presumption of impartiality on Creager's part was by the morning of August 14 a will-o’-the-wisp.

  27. SMAC-3, p. 2392 (testimony of Combe).

  28. Ibid.

  29. SMAC-2, p. 1932 (testimony of Penrose).

  30. Ibid., p. 1777 (testimony of Capt. Edgar Macklin).

  31. Ibid., pp. 1777, 1770–71.

  32. Ibid., p. 1778.

  33. Ibid., p. 1933 (testimony of Penrose).

  34. Ibid., pp. 1803, 1804 (testimony of Macklin).

  35. Creager testified that Connor did as instructed, then turned everything over to the Mayor, who was keeping them at city hall.

  36. SMAC-3, p. 2390 (testimony of Combe).

  37. Ibid., p. 2387.

  38. Ibid., p. 2386.

  39. Ibid., p. 2393.

  40. SMAC-2, pp. 2529–30, 2543, 2549 (testimony of William Kelly).

  41. Ibid., p. 2525.

  42. Ibid., p. 2520.

  43. Ibid., p. 2530.

  44. Ibid., p. 2525.

  45. Ibid., p. 2558.

  46. Ibid., p. 2531.

  47. Ibid., pp. 2522, 2518, 2530–31, 3008, 3009.

  48. SMAC-3, p. 2394 (testimony of Combe).

  49. Ibid., p. 2531 (testimony of Kelly). Combe's recollection of Penrose's words was even more damning: “I would give my right arm to find out the guilty parties.” According to Combe, the army officer had tears in his eyes. Ibid., p. 2395 (testimony of Combe).

  50. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to Military Secretary, Department of Texas, August 14, 1906, SMAC-2, p. 1938.

  51. SMAC-3, p. 2395 (testimony of Combe).

  52. The transcript of the testimony is at Brownsville Affray, Report of Secretary of War, and Additional Testimony, S. Doc. No. 59-155, pt. 1 (1907) (hereafter cited as SD-1), pp. 440–53, and additional statements given to explain incidents that led up to the shooting are at SD-1, pp. 454–55.

  53. William Howard Taft, letter to Charles Culberson, June 4, 1906, SD-1, p. 301. It is not clear whether Colonel Hoyt, who a month earlier had made his request to the War Department that his regiment not be sent to Texas, was aware that Taft already had turned down Culberson's same request.

  54. “Charles Culberson,” GovTrack, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/charles_culberson/403074 (accessed May 6, 2014).

  55. “Bailey, Joseph Weldon,” The Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fba10 (accessed May 6, 2014).

  56. “Senator Bailey,” New York Times, July 2, 1902.

  57. Charles Culberson and Joseph Bailey, telegram to William Howard Taft, August 15, 1906, SD-1, p. 19. Taft was vacationing, as he was every summer, at his summer retreat, what some years later the New Yorker magazine would call his “unpretentious estate” in Murray Bay, Quebec. “Mr. Taft's Murray Bay,” The Talk of the Town, New Yorker, September 4, 1926, p. 7. His time at Murray Bay was so important to Taft that three years later, when he would be president only three months and by custom forced to remain in the United States, he would speculate on the consequences of not winning reelection in 1912. “One of the consolations would be that I could go to Murray Bay in the summers thereafter.” William Howard Taft, letter to Charles P
. Taft, June 28, 1909, quoted in The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography, by Henry F. Pringle (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), 1:123.

  58. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders: An Autobiography (New York: Library of America, 2004), p. 329.

  59. Roosevelt's orders to Taft and Bacon: see Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1984), p. 210; and Theodore Roosevelt, telegrams to Robert Bacon, September 12 and 13, 1906, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 5, The Big Stick: 1907–1909 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 408–409 and p. 409, respectively. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Henry White, August 14, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 356–59; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Joseph Cannon, August 15, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 359–61; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Henry Cabot Lodge, August 15, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 361; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Charles Joseph Bonaparte, August 16, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 361–62.

  60. SD-1, pp. 20–21.

  61. There was no such testimony.

  62. William Loeb, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 18, 1906, SD-1, p. 25. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegrams to Charles Culberson and Joseph Bailey, August 18, 1906, SD-1, p. 25.

  63. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to the Department of Texas, August 14, 1906, SMAC-2, p. 1938.

  64. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to Maj. Charles Penrose, August 15, 1906, SD-1, p. 19; and Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 16, 1906, SD-1, p. 22.

  65. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to William Loeb, August 17, 1906, SD-1, p. 23.

  66. Charles Culberson, telegram to William Howard Taft, August 17, 1906, SD-1, p. 23.

  67. “Fred Crayton Ainsworth,” Arlington National Cemetery, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/fcains.htm (accessed May 7, 2014).

  68. Gen. W. S. McCaskey, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 17, 1906, SD-1, p. 24. The next day, McCaskey again misconstrued Penrose's words. In the answer Penrose sent “at once,” he reported, “Guard of one-third of garrison, one company, constantly on duty.” McCaskey chose to report this as “One-third garrison guarding other two-thirds.” Gen. W. S. McCaskey, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 18, 1906, SD-1, p. 22. Ainsworth forwarded this to Loeb—and by so doing to the president—in Oyster Bay.

  69. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to William Loeb, August 18, 1906, SD-1, p. 24.

  70. Telegram to the “Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States,” signed by John Bartlett, County Judge, and eighteen others, August 18, 1906, appearing in ibid., p. 26.

  71. Charles Culberson, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 19, 1906, SD-1, p. 27; Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to Maj. Charles Penrose, August 19, 1906, SD-1, p. 27; Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth (mistakenly identified as “Secretary of War”), August 19, 1906, SD-1, p. 28.

  72. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to Maj. Augustus Blocksom, August 20, 1906, SD-1, p. 33; Maj. Augustus Blocksom, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 20, 1906, SD-1, p. 34.

  73. “Texans Arm for Troops,” New York Times, August 17, 1906.

  74. See Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to William Loeb, August 19, 1906, SD-1, p. 26.

  75. “Mayor Saved Brownsville,” New York Times, March 25, 1907.

  76. William Loeb, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 20, 1906, SD-1, p. 34.

  77. In World War I, Theodore Roosevelt's oldest son, Theodore Jr., served in France with the Twenty-Sixth Infantry. At the beginning of World War II, he was its commanding officer.

  78. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to adjutant general, Camp Mabry, August 21, 1906, SD-1, p. 40; and Gen. W. S. McCaskey, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 21, 1906, SD-1, p. 40.

  79. William Loeb, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 21, 1906, SD-1, p. 38.

  80. SMAC-3, p. 2545 (testimony of Combe).

  81. Ibid., p. 2431.

  82. Weaver, Brownsville Raid, p. 80.

  83. SMAC-3, p. 3239 (testimony of John Kleiber).

  84. SMAC-3, p. 2397 (testimony of Combe).

  85. SMAC-3, pp. 2532, 2544 (testimony of Kelly).

  86. SMAC-3, p. 2514 (testimony of Joe Crixell).

  87. S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 4 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-1), pp. 857–58 (testimony of Cpl. Willie Miller).

  88. See Weaver, Brownsville Raid, pp. 254–58 and citations therein.

  89. Quoted in Ann J. Lane, The Brownsville Affair: National Crisis and Black Reaction (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 20.

  90. Later investigations of the shootings faced the puzzle of why some houses and buildings seemed targeted and others not. Most mystifying was the fusillade into the Starck house. It was not near the fort, and it was not along the path of shooting that started at the garrison wall and went to the Tillman and Crixell bars. The Starcks, especially Mr. Starck, had no run-in, problem, or difficulty with anyone, certainly not with the soldiers. When asked if they had an answer, both Starcks suggested their home might have been mistaken for that of Fred Tate, who lived next door and worked together with Fred Starck as a customs inspector. It was Tate who had confiscated Private Adair's pen and pistol-whipped Private Newton.

  91. SMAC-3, p. 3112 (testimony of Penrose).

  92. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to the adjutant general, Department of Texas; Gen. W. S. McCaskey, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 23, 1906, SD-1, p. 46; Capt. Samuel Lyon, telegram to the military secretary, Department of Texas, August 23, 1906, SD-1, p. 46.

  93. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to Maj. Charles Penrose, August 24, 1906, SD-1, p. 47.

  94. Ibid.

  95. SMAC-3, p. 2397 (testimony of Combe).

  96. Not knowing of Judge Welch's decision, Roosevelt said the battalion would go to Fort Reno, Oklahoma, but drop off the arrested men in San Antonio, Texas, where they would be within the reach of Texas authorities if he ever decided to turn them over.

  CHAPTER 5: A MORE AGGRESSIVE ATTITUDE

  1. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 24, 1906, in Summary Discharge or Mustering Out of Regiments or Companies: Message from the President of the United States…, S. Doc. No. 59-155, vol. 11, pt. 1 (2d sess. 1907) (hereafter cited as SD-1), p. 47.

  2. Affray at Brownsville, Tex.: Hearings Before the Comm. on Military Affairs…, S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 6 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-3), pp. 2404–2405 (testimony of Dr. Frederick J. Combe).

  3. John D. Weaver, The Brownsville Raid (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), p. 87.

  4. SMAC-3, p. 2596 (testimony of Maj. Augustus Blocksom).

  5. Weaver, Brownsville Raid, p. 87.

  6. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to the military secretary, Department of Texas, August 14, 1906, in S. Doc. No. 60-402, pt. 5 (1908) (hereafter cited as SMAC-2), p. 1938.

  7. Four investigations were by local or state people or agencies, seven were by the army, three by federal agencies (one of which was jointly with the army), one by a private investigator hired by Senator Joseph Foraker, another (by this same investigator) retained for the government by Secretary of War William H. Taft, one by a court of inquiry, one informally by some of the soldiers, one by a civil rights organization, and the mammoth year-and-a-half-long hearing by the Senate Military Affairs Committee.

  8. Maj. Charles Penrose, Report, August 15, 1906, SD-1, pp. 31, 32.

  9. Maj. Charles Penrose, telegram to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 14, 1906, in S. Doc. No. 59-155, vol. 11, pt. 2 (2d sess. 1907) (hereafter cited as SD-2), p. 1345.

  10. Maj. Charles Penrose, written report to Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, August 15, 1906, SD-1, p. 30.

  11. SMAC-2, p. 1803 (testimony of Capt. Edgar Macklin); SMAC-2, p. 1963 (testimony of Maj. Charles Penrose).

  12. SMAC-3, p. 2584 (testimony of Macklin).

  13. “Augustus P. Blocksom,” Ar
lington National Cemetery, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/apblocksom.htm (accessed May 9, 2014); “Biography: Brig. Gen. Augustus P. Blocksom,” US Army Pacific, http://www.usarpac.army.mil/history2/cg_blocksom.asp (accessed May 9, 2014).

  14. SMAC-3, p. 2583 (testimony of Blocksom).

  15. Ibid., p. 2597.

  16. Ibid., pp. 2584, 2597.

  17. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, telegram to Gen. Augustus Blocksom, August 20, 1906, SD-1, p. 33.

  18. Gen. Augustus Blocksom, telegram to Gen Fred C. Ainsworth, August 20, 1906, SD-1, p. 34.

  19. Blocksom Report, SD-1, p. 426.

  20. See SD-1, p. 515 (affidavit of Pvt. Thomas Jefferson, Company C); and SMAC-1, p. 610 (testimony of Sgt. Francois L. Oltmans). And so did civilians, including Mayor Combe (SMAC-3, p. 2383). And George W. Randall (SD-1, p. 440), Jose Martinez (SD-1, p. 443), and A. Baker (SD-1, p. 445), all three of whom said so to the Citizens’ Committee the morning after the shooting.

  21. SMAC-3, p. 2459 (testimony of Ambrose Littlefield, former deputy sheriff of Cameron County).

  22. SMAC-1, pp. 431–32 (testimony of Quartermaster Sgt. George McMurray); 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. 331.

  23. Blocksom Report, SD-1, p. 439 (affidavit of Pvt. Joseph Howard). See also SMAC-3, p. 2606 (testimony of Blocksom).

  24. SMAC-3, p. 2642 (testimony of Blocksom).

  25. See Sanders's service record given to the Senate Military Affairs Committee by the War Department and his responses to questions from Senator Foraker before the committee, SMAC-1, p. 285.

  26. SMAC-3, p. 2633 (testimony of Blocksom).

  27. Blocksom Report, SD-1, p. 427.

  28. See experiments of Lieutenant H. A. Wiegenstein at Fort McIntosh, Texas, cited in Weaver, Brownsville Raid, pp. 151–52.

  29. SMAC-3, p. 2644 (testimony of Blocksom).

  30. Blocksom Report, SD-1, p. 428.

  31. SMAC-3, p. 2642 (testimony of Blocksom).

  32. Ibid., pp. 2641–42.

  33. Ibid., p. 2629.

  34. Blocksom Report, SD-1, p. 429.

  35. Ibid., pp. 428–29.

  36. Ibid., p. 430.