Rough Riders

First US volunteer cavalry brigade. Two days after Congress passed the Volunteer Army Act in April 1898, Spain declared war on the USA. Several hundred men, mainly cowboys, joined the force, which was soon dubbed by the press as the ‘Rough Riders’. The volunteers, led by Lt-Col Theodore Roosevelt, were sent to fight the Spanish in Cuba in June 1898, where they joined a thousand regular army forces under the command of Leonard Wood to win a US victory at the battle of Las Guasimas.

Roosevelt had resigned as assistant secretary of the US Navy to take his commission with the Rough Riders. His presence encouraged a number of Ivy Leaguers (members of the US academic and social elite) to apply to the brigade. Roosevelt's role with the Rough Riders greatly contributed to his reputation as a war hero.