Page:Theodore Roosevelt Rough Riders.djvu/320

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312
The Rough Riders

of the officers of the Ninth Cavalry, You ordered a charge, and the regular officers answered that they had no orders to move ahead ; whereupon you said : "Then let us through," and marched forward through the lines, our regiment following. The men of the Ninth and First Cavalry then jumped up and came forward with us. Then you waved your at and gave the command to charge and we went up the hill. On the top of Kettle Hill my brother. Oliver B. Norton, was shot through the head and in the right wrist. It was just as you started to lead the charge on the San Juan hills ahead of us; we saw that the regiment did not know you had gone and were not following, and my brother said, "For God's sake follow the Colonel," and as he rose the bullet went through his head.

In reference to Mr. Bonsai's account of the Guasimas fight, Mr. Richard Harding Davis writes me as follows:

We had already halted several times to gave the men a chance to rest, and when we halted for the last time I thought it was for this same purpose, and began taking photographs of the men of L Troop, who were so near that they asked me to be sure and save them a photograph. Wood had twice disappeared down the trail beyond them and returned. As he came back for the second time I remember that you walked up to him (we were all dismounted then), and saluted and said: "Colonel, Doctor La Motte reports that the pace is too