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ORIGIN OF THE NAME "ROUGH RIDERS"

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt says: "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."

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COPYRIGHT 1898 "BUFFALO BILL"

COL. THEODORE E. ROOSEVELT

LEADING HIS "ROUGH RIDERS" IN THE FAMOUS CHARGE AT SAN JUAN, '98.

The "some reason or other" for calling his regiment "Rough Riders," regarding which Colonel Roosevelt seems to be in doubt, is so readily found and explained that his failure to discover it is really surprising. The name is one with which the public has become familiar, and in a way fascinated, through its adoption some years ago by Col. W. F. Cody-"Buffalo Bill"- to designate precisely the class of frontiersmen associated with his Wild West Exhibition, which, as Colonel Roosevelt himself remarks, "made up the bulk of the regiment and gave it its peculiar character." The term was gradually widened to include the Cossack, Arabian, Mexican, South American, trooper, and other free, fearless equestrians, now marshaled under the leadership of the greatest horseman of them all. Millions of people had grown to understand, fully appreciate, and unboundedly admire that title and what it stands for, and its transference to the First U. S. V. Cavalry was not only a deserved compliment but an honorable designation, whose admirable fitness was at once and universally recognized. Colonel Cody first introduced the name "Rought Riders" to the American public. The manner in which Colonel Roosevelt subsequently introduced it to the Spaniards has made it historically immortal.