A Soldier's Story: Colonel Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Jr.
Colonel Theodore, "Teddy" Roosevelt, Jr., A Soldier's Story
Even as a boy, Roosevelt’s curiosity was endless. At seven, he and his cousins began a small “natural history museum,” displaying animals he had trapped and taxidermied himself. By nine, he had written The Natural History of Insects.
Educated primarily at home, he entered Harvard in 1876, where he joined the rowing and boxing teams, several clubs, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1880. Though he enrolled in Columbia Law School afterward, politics soon pulled him away. Elected to the New York State Assembly in 1882, Roosevelt also served in the New York National Guard and published his first book, The Naval War of 1812.
Following personal tragedy in 1884, Roosevelt retreated westward to build a ranch in the Badlands of North Dakota. The harsh winter of 1886–87 destroyed his herd, sending him back east, where he wrote The Winning of the West. His energy and reformist zeal soon earned him appointments as a U.S. Civil Service Commissioner and later, New York City Police Commissioner.
In 1897, President William McKinley named Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy. When the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, Roosevelt readied the Navy for war, then resigned to form the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, the legendary “Rough Riders.” They trained in Texas and fought courageously in Cuba, including the famed charge up Kettle Hill on July 1, 1898.
Returning home a national hero, Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York, and by 1900, Vice President. After President McKinley’s assassination in 1901, Roosevelt, then 42, became the youngest President in U.S. history.
As President, he was a whirlwind of reform. He championed anti-trust action, labor rights, food safety, railroad regulation, and conservation, founding the U.S. Forest Service and preserving over 230 million acres of public land. Known for his booming personality and daily press briefings, he issued more than a thousand executive orders during his tenure.
After leaving office, Roosevelt led the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, collecting specimens for museums and writing African Game Trails. Later disillusioned by President Taft’s leadership, he ran again in 1912 under the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party, surviving an assassination attempt during a campaign speech, which he famously finished before seeking medical care.
Though Woodrow Wilson won the presidency, Roosevelt continued his adventures, embarking on a perilous South American expedition that left him with malaria and lasting health complications. Even so, he wrote Through the Brazilian Wilderness and The Foes of Our Own Household, in which he criticized Wilson’s policies during World War I.
When his son, Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt, was killed in action, his grief was profound. On January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep from a blood clot at his home in Sagamore Hill. He was sixty years old.
In his lifetime, Roosevelt wrote eighteen books, served as a Freemason and a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, and lived every day with ferocity and purpose. He boxed, rode horses, played polo, hiked, practiced judo, and, on occasion, was caught skinny-dipping in the Potomac. His life was, in every sense, the embodiment of his own advice:
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
****** *********************************
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller living in Salem, Virginia.
In addition to her travel writings at www.takethebackroads.com, you can also read her book reviews at www.riteoffancy.com and US military biographies at www.everydaypatriot.com
Her online photography gallery can be found at shop.takethebackroads.com
#TaketheBackRoads
Like my page? Please consider supporting my work by visiting my sponsors and webshop or buying me a cup of coffee!
