?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 2,000
WRITING FROM CUBA ABOUT HIS "ROUGH RIDERS": "WE HAVE A FINE REGIMENT HERE" ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Brief Typed Letter Signed, to Colonel Hiram P. Marston: "I thank you for your letter. I only wish you could have been along with us as Major. We have a fine regiment here." 1 page, oblong small 4to; folds. "In camp near Santiago de Cuba," 27 July 1898
By the time of the writing of the present letter, peace negotiations between the U.S. and Spain had begun, leading to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in early December of 1898, bringing an end to the Spanish-American War. President McKinley was holding the U.S. Army in Cuba during the negotiations, despite the protestations of senior officers reporting that yellow fever and malaria had begun spreading dangerously rapidly among the units. At the end of July, Roosevelt drafted a "round-robin"--an open letter signed by a number of commanders disapproving of the War Department policy--and gave it to the U.S. press who, on August 4, made it national news. It is doubtful that the round-robin had much impact on the health of the soldiers, since Alger had already ordered Navy ships to retrieve the troops on August 3, but the scandal, together with the victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill, surely helped to paint a picture of Roosevelt as a man of action in the eyes of the public.
