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Page:Theodore Roosevelt Rough Riders.djvu/342

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334
The Rough Riders

noted daily from the landing until the surrender. On the day of the fight notes were taken just before Grimes fired his first gun, just after the third reply from the enemy—when we were massed in the road about seventy paces from Grimes's guns, and when I was beginning to get scared and to think I would be killed—at the halt just before you advanced, and under the shelter of the hills in the evening. Each time that notes were taken the page was put in an envelope addressed to my wife. At the first chance they were mailed to her, and on my arrival in the United States the story of the fight, taken from these notes, was entered in the diary I keep in a book. I make this lengthy explanation that you may see that everything put down was fresh in my memory.

I quote from my diary: "The tension on the men was great. Suddenly a line of men appeared coming from our right. They were advancing through the long grass, deployed as skirmishers, and were under fire. At their head, or rather in front of them and leading them, rode Colonel Roosevelt. He was very conspicuous, mounted as he was. The men were the 'Rough Riders,'so-called, I heard some one calling to them not to fire into us, and seeing Colonel Carrol, reported to him, and was told to go out and meet them, and caution them as to our position, we being between them