ArizonaRealCountry.com 39 July 2018 Apache wars. Capron would resign his commission in the regular army to become a Captain in the Rough Riders. The other half of the Rough Riders were "easterners," athletic, prominent men who either had known Roosevelt or had known of him. Despite the differences in experience with the rugged, seasoned men of the West, all of these volunteers, soon-to-be- called the Rough Riders were able to form a solid bond, united in their desire to serve the country and win laurels on the battlefield. Contrary to historical fact, Tom Mix did not serve in the Rough Riders, nor did another notorious gunfighter, Tom Horn, although Horn would serve on detached service, handling the pack mules that supplied the Rough Riders upon landing in Cuba until he came down with a case of Malaria. Roosevelt who was able to procure the necessary supplies for the regiment including Khaki uniforms and the valuable smokeless Krag-Jorgenson rifles had boyish enthusiasm that soon caught on with the men of the regiment, yet there was never a case of discipline in the 780 man regiment from the time they arrived in San Antonio right up to their departure from Tampa, Florida for Santiago less than a month later, not even when after a memorable train ride across the south they experienced the nightmare logjam of logistics of an Army unprepared for war, and not even when 200 of the 780 men regiment were told that because of lack of ships, they would have to stay behind For the overall commander of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in the U.S. 5th Corps was no ordinary man. Major General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler was a known fighter who only 37 years earlier had resigned from the U.S. Army to wear the Confederate gray. He would command the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Tennessee from Shiloh to Sherman's March to the Sea contesting Sherman every step of the way. The wizened, gray, wiry Wheeler was, as described by Roosevelt, a "fighting little gamecock" who wasn't afraid to search for a fight and he got one several days later at Las Guasimas, stumbling right into a Spanish division in what would be the Rough Riders first battle on Cuban soil, the battle of Las Guasimas, where sadly the experienced Captain Capron, leading his men in the jungle thicket, would be mortally wounded while Roosevelt's friend Sergeant Hamilton Fish, son of a former U.S. Secretary of State under Grant would also fall nearby. Despite being the initial shock and almost being outfought the dismounted cavalry of the Rough Riders rose to the occasion and acquitted themselves well, pushing back the Spanish while General Wheeler, forgetting where he was, chortled, "We've got the Damn Yankees on the Run!" They buried their dead and continued marching onward alongside other elements of the 5th Corps, including the infantry division commanded by General Henry Lawton, Wood's old Apache Wars commander and a 10th Cavalry "Buffalo Soldiers" regiment that featured a young lieutenant by the name of John Pershing until they reached the slopes of the three heights dominating the approaches to Santiago, El Caney, Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill on the early morning of July 1rd. Lawton's division quickly moved to seize the fortifications of El Caney, while another division moved on towards San Juan Heights. For the Rough Riders and the 10th Cavalry, their objective was Kettle Hill, sandwiched in between El Caney and San Juan. As the regiments deployed and prepared to storm Kettle while under continuous Spanish fire because the Army command had blundered in sending up an observation balloon right over the troops, thus allowing the Spanish to direct a devastating pinpoint fire on the advancing Americans, the Rough Riders suffered their most grievous loss. Only a week earlier, after observing the vultures flying over the dead at Las Guasimas, the Arizona lawman and Rough Rider Captain O'Neill had remarked to Roosevelt: "Wasn't it Whitman who says of the vultures that they pluck the eyes of princes and tear the flesh of kings". Now it was O'Neill strolling coolly in front of the trenches smoking his cigarette while encouraging his men, oblivious to the cries that he would be hit. To one worried sergeant, he laughed, saying "the Spanish bullet isn't made that would kill me". Only a couple minutes later, as O'Neill was conferring with another officer, still in full view of the Spanish line, his men heard a loud pop, and looked up to see O'Neill fall, a bullet passing through his mouth out of the back of his head, his "wild and gallant soul gone out into the darkness" as Roosevelt sadly wrote later. The Rough Riders briefly grieved the loss of the popular O'Neill, then under the cover of Lieutenant John H. Parker's Gatling guns (the only artillery they possessed) the 500 or so angry troopers rose up out of the trenches and moved straight up Kettle Hill in the face of withering Spanish machine gun and rifle fire, not to mention that burning sun, the smoke, and the Cuban tropical heat. Roosevelt rode up on his horse, "Little Texas" right into the fire, at one point chewing out a soldier who had crouched down. As the soldier stood up to salute the Colonel, he pitched forward, dead. Roosevelt was nicked in the wrist, and "Little Texas" was wounded, but incredibly he suffered no further wounds himself, and upon reaching the Spanish trenches shot down a Spanish officer in what he would later call The Immortal Charge continued from page 34 Much more accurate was famed History artist Mort Kuntsler's description of Roosevelt on horseback leading his dismounted men up Kettle Hill. continued on page 43 Only Colonel Wood and Lt. Colonel Roosevelt were the only Rough Riders allowed to bring their horses to the Cuba battlefields. They were on horseback, the rest of the Rough Riders fought as dismounted cavalry. his "Crowded Hour". Even as their comrades fell around them, the surviving hundreds of men of both the Rough Riders and the 10th Cavalry led by that gallant lieutenant named Pershing kept going forward routing the thousands of Spanish soldiers in front of them. They would reach the crest, go forward as the Spanish fire diminished and then seize the heights and the fortified Spanish blockhouses shooting down all in their way. But they didn't stop there, for as they seized those heights Roosevelt observed the infantry under General Hamilton Hawkins moving on San Juan Hill under a rain of Spanish fire, and ordered his men to join them in the assault at the adjoining hill. Closer to the beach, the notorious gunfighter Tom Horn did take care of the few mules and pack horses that the Army did allot the invasion force, but he did not see actual combat with the Rough Riders. in Tampa along with all of the regiment's horses excepting those of Wood's and Roosevelt's. Thus only 8 troops of about 70 men each - 560 in all joined the other 17,000 men of the US 5th Corps who boarded the ships that took them from Tampa to the Daiquiri, (yes, Daiquiri beaches just east of their objective, Santiago, where they landed on June 20th and due to the fighting spirit of the cavalry commander of the 5th corps would soon find themselves in close combat in the sweltering tropical heat with the Spanish.