The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

io6 THE ROUGH RIDERS
believed he could learn to command a regiment in a month,
that this was just the very month that he could not afford to
spare and that, therefore, he would be quite content to go as
lieutenant-colonel if he would make his friend. Wood, colonel.
"This was satisfactory to both the President and Secretary
of War," said Mr. Roosevelt, "and accordingly Wood and I
were speedily commissioned as colonel and lieutenant-colonel
of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. This was the
official title of the regiment, but for some reason or other, the
public promptly christened us the 'Rough Riders.' At first we
fought against the use of the term, but to no purpose, and
when finally the generals of division and brigade began to
write in formal communications about our regiment as the
'Rough Riders,' we adopted the term ourselves."
DELUGED WITH APPLICATIONS
The mustering places for the regiment were" mainly New
Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and the
main difficulty encountered was not in selecting, but in reject-
ing men. From every section of the United States applica-
tions began to pour in, and when, finally, the roster was
complete, as Mr. Riis has expressed it, "the Rough Riders
were the most composite lot ever gathered under a regimental
standard, but they were at the same time singularly typical of
the spirit that conquered a continent in three generations,
eminently American. Probably such another will never be
gotten together again; in no other country on earth could it
have been mustered to-day. The cowboy, the Indian trailer,
the Indian himself, the packer, and the hunter who had
sought and killed the grizzly in his mountain fastness, touched
elbows with the New York policeman who, for love of adven-