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Civil War Trust unveils to donate "a significant collection of keynote speech at the anniversary Civil War artifacts" to the park program. plan to preserve service. Park Superintendent Rick Slade Robert E. Lee credited Lighthizer with preserving nearly one-third of the Monocacy Headquarters battlefield’s 1,500 acres when he was By Jeffrey B. Roth, Reuters, July 1, Maryland transportation secretary 2014 and a state legislator. A non-profit trust dedicated to “Jim is a great advocate for Civil War preserving Civil War sites plans to parks, but he has a specific spend more than $5 million to save connection to Monocacy National and restore a small stone building Battlefield,” Slade said. which served as the headquarters for Lighthizer made the case for Confederate general Robert E. Lee preserving battlefields while during the Battle of Gettysburg. highlighting the importance of the The Battle of Gettysburg, which Battle of Monocacy. He described lasted three days in 1863, is often Monocacy as “the Rodney described as the turning point of the Thompson House, Lee’s Headquarters at Gettysburg, July 1863 - NPS Photo Dangerfield of battlefields. It gets no Civil War. Some 164,000 troops from respect.” both sides participated, and some Vigorous debate exists among Civil 51,000 were left dead, wounded, About $2.5 million of the total cost has already been raised through War enthusiasts, Lighthizer said, captured or missing. about the importance of the so-called The Civil War Trust announced on private donations and the trust is applying for a $1.5 million grant, said “battle that saved Washington." Tuesday it had purchased the four- “I’m not going to argue if it was the acre plot of land surrounding the Jim Lighthizer, president of the Trust. The remaining $1.1 million must be greatest battle, but it is significant,” he building, and plans to raze several said. non-historic buildings at the site, said raised before the end of this year, he said. If Gen. Jubal Early had invaded Mary Koik, a spokeswoman for the Washington, even for a few hours, trust. “I’d suggest to you it would have been The Lee headquarters and another Anniversary speaker able to sink President (Abraham) building that is part of the casts new light on Lincoln,” Lighthizer said. preservation project currently occupy Everyone debates the turning point of the same four-acre property as the Monocacy battle By Ike Wilson, Frederick News-Post, the war, he said, “but think about this: Appalachian Brewery and the Quality If Lincoln didn’t get re-elected, it Inn. In early 2015, the Civil War Trust July 10, 2014 The 150th anniversary program would have had odious will take over the property and raze consequences. There could have those two buildings, Koik said. Wednesday at the Monocacy National Battlefield was educational been independent states and a return "We've torn down smaller buildings, to slavery.” but these are the largest we will have for Barbara Whitacre. “You never heard of the Battle of Looking at history in the rearview ever removed," Koik said. mirror is ill-advised, Lighthizer said, The project will take nine to 12 Monocacy during the Civil War’s centennial celebration,” said but preserving battlefields must be a months once the restoration phase priority on all fronts. begins, and the site will eventually be Whitacre, of Winchester, Virginia. “This was an opportunity to learn. “The world will not remember a damn turned over to the National Park thing about what I say today, but Service and the Gettysburg “I don’t think there was a battle that was not significant," she said. "It’s all what’s going to last, what remains if Foundation, she said. we do it right is the land,” he said. Belmont Partnership, the former history; it’s made us what we are as a country.” “We ought to be focusing on saving owners, will continue to operate their the land because long after time has businesses until 2015, Koik said. In Whitacre and others applauded Civil addition, Belmont Partnership plans War Trust President Jim Lighthizer’s

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THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER passed, the land will be here, and gulped the brew and started firing Army camps could always find work we’ll be able to remember our past.” again. “It was like putting a new as cooks if they were good at Local Civil War enthusiast Jim Enright regiment in the fight,” their officer “settling” the coffee – getting the said Lighthizer made a convincing recalled. Three decades later, grounds to sink to the bottom of the argument that if Early had gotten into McKinley ran for president in part on unfiltered muckets. Washington, the headlines would this singular act of caffeinated For much of the war, the massive have read, "Lincoln and Cabinet had heroism. Union Army of the Potomac made up to flee." At the time, no one found McKinley’s the second-largest population center “With all the Civil War writings, act all that strange. For Union in the Confederacy, and each nobody’s ever said that before,” soldiers, and the lucky Confederates morning this sprawling city became a Enright said. “What I learned from the who could scrounge some, coffee coffee factory. First, as another diarist speech is that this was really the fueled the war. Soldiers drank it noted, “little campfires, rapidly battle that saved President Lincoln. before marches, after marches, on increasing to hundreds in number, He really made the Battle of patrol, during combat. In their diaries, would shoot up along the hills and Monocacy more important.” “coffee” appears more frequently than plains.” Then the encampment The anniversary program was the the words “rifle,” “cannon” or “bullet.” buzzed with the sound of thousands culmination of nine months of Ragged veterans and tired nurses of grinders simultaneously crushing planning, Slade said, adding that the agreed with one diarist: “Nobody can beans. Soon tens of thousands of event has brought a number of new ‘soldier’ without coffee.” muckets gurgled with fresh brew. visitors to the battlefield, and the Union troops made their coffee Confederates were not so lucky. The exposure is much needed. everywhere, and with everything: with Union blockade kept most coffee out Monocacy is a relatively young park water from canteens and puddles, of seceded territory. One British that is not that well-known, partly brackish bays and Mississippi mud, observer noted that the loss of coffee because of two larger parks close by liquid their horses would not drink. “afflicts the Confederates even more — Gettysburg and Antietam national They cooked it over fires of plundered than the loss of spirits,” while an battlefields, the superintendent said. fence rails, or heated mugs in Alabama nurse joked that the fierce But Monocacy’s significance has scalding steam-vents on naval craving for caffeine would, somehow, been evolving over time, he said. gunboats. When times were good, be the Union’s “means of subjugating “I’ve learned the jury is still out on the coffee accompanied beefsteaks and us.” When coffee was available, park’s significance, which could be oysters; when they were bad it captured or smuggled or traded with perceived as troubling, but I see it as washed down raw salt-pork and Union troops during casual cease- an opportunity,” Slade said. “It’s been maggoty hardtack. Coffee was often fires, Confederates wrote amazing to see the interest and the the last comfort troops enjoyed before rhapsodically about their first sip. turnout. A lot of people have said they entering battle, and the first sign of The problem spilled over to the Union had no idea of the richness of our safety for those who survived. invaders. When Gen. William T. story.” The Union Army encouraged this Sherman’s Union troops decided to love, issuing soldiers roughly 36 live off plunder and forage as they cut How Coffee Fueled the pounds of coffee each year. Men their way through Georgia and South ground the beans themselves (some Carolina, soldiers complained that Civil War carbines even had built-in grinders) while food was plentiful, there were By JON GRINSPAN, New York and brewed it in little pots called no beans to be found. “Coffee is only Times, July 9, 2014 muckets. They spent much of their got from Uncle Sam,” an Ohio officer It was the greatest coffee run in downtime discussing the quality of grumbled, and his men “could scarce American history. The Ohio boys had that morning’s brew. Reading their get along without it.” been fighting since morning, trapped diaries, one can sense the delight Confederate soldiers and civilians in the raging battle of Antietam, in (and addiction) as troops gushed would not go without. Many cooked September 1862. Suddenly, a 19- about a “delicious cup of black,” or up coffee substitutes, roasting corn or year-old William McKinley appeared, fumed about “wishy-washy coffee.” rye or chopped beets, grinding them under heavy fire, hauling vats of hot Escaped slaves who joined Union finely and brewing up something coffee. The men held out tin cups,

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THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER warm and brown. It contained no stuff at every meal pointed ahead revealed: Lyons Wakeman was born caffeine, but desperate soldiers toward the world the war made, a a woman, Sarah Rosetta Wakeman. claimed to love it. Gen. George civilization that lives on today in every The only people who knew for certain Pickett, famous for that failed charge office break room. the soldier’s true identity were the at Gettysburg, thanked his wife for But more than that, coffee was simply parents and eight siblings Lyons left the delicious “coffee” she had sent, delicious, soothing – “the soldier’s behind. But even they decided to gushing: “No Mocha or Java ever chiefest bodily consolation” – for men keep the soldier’s secret, and tasted half so good as this rye-sweet- and women pushed beyond their afterward spoke only of Lyons as potato blend!” limits. Caffeine was secondary. their beloved brother. Did the fact that Union troops were Soldiers often brewed coffee at the How Rosetta – she went by her near jittery from coffee, while rebels end of long marches, deep in the middle name – managed to conceal survived on impotent brown water, night while other men assembled her identity during her final month in have an impact on the outcome of the tents. These grunts were too tired for the hospital is still a mystery. Perhaps conflict? Union soldiers certainly caffeine to make a difference; they those caring for her knew, but simply thought so. Though they rarely used just wanted to share a warm cup – of decided to let Rosetta carry the the word “caffeine,” in their letters and Brazilian beans or scorched rye – secret she’d kept for the entire two diaries they raved about that before passing out. years she’d served in the 153rd New “wonderful stimulant in a cup of This explains their fierce love. When York State Volunteers to her grave in coffee,” considering it a “nerve tonic.” one captured Union soldier was the Chalmette National Cemetery One depressed soldier wrote home finally freed from a prison camp, he near New Orleans, where she is that he was surprised that he was still meditated on his experiences. Over buried under her alias. living, and reasoned: “what keeps me his first cup of coffee in more than a When Rosetta first left home in rural alive must be the coffee.” year, he wondered if he could ever upstate New York, in the summer of Others went further, considering forgive “those Confederate thieves for 1862, she found employment as a coffee a weapon of war. Gen. robbing me of so many precious canal man, agreeing “to run 4 trips Benjamin Butler ordered his men to doses.” Getting worked up, he fumed, from Binghamton to Utica for 20$ in carry coffee in their canteens, and “Just think of it, in three hundred days money,” according to her letters planned attacks based on when his there was lost to me, forever, so home. It was on her first trip ferrying men would be most caffeinated. He many hundred pots of good old coal that Rosetta “saw some soldiers” assured another general, before a Government Java.” near Utica who encouraged her to fight in October 1864, that “if your So when William McKinley braved enlist for three years, gaining her men get their coffee early in the enemy fire to bring his comrades a “100 and 52$ in money” plus $13 a morning you can hold.” warm cup – an act memorialized in a month thereafter – a substantial raise Coffee did not win the war – Union stone monument at Antietam today – from the wages she had been material resources and manpower he knew what it meant to them. earning. played a much, much bigger role than Much of the money that Rosetta the quality of its Java – but it might A Woman at War earned she sent home to her parents, say something about the victors. By ERIN LINDSAY MCCABE, New telling them, “All the money I send From one perspective, coffee was York Times, June 30, 2014 you I want you should spend it for the emblematic of the new Northern order On June 19, 1864, Pvt. Lyons family in clothing or something to of fast-paced wage labor, a hurried, Wakeman died of dysentery in the eat.” Since her father was in debt, at business-minded, industrializing Marine U.S.A. General Hospital in least some of Rosetta’s motivation for nation of strivers. For years, Northern New Orleans, after having marched enlisting was probably to help support bosses had urged their workers to 200 miles and seen combat at the her family. But she also alludes to switch from liquor to coffee, dreaming Battle of Pleasant Hill, part of the more personal reasons, saying, “I of sober, caffeinated, untiring Union’s Red River campaign in want to drop all old affray and I want employees. Southerners drank coffee Louisiana. But it would be years you to do the same and when i come too – in New Orleans especially – but before Wakeman’s real identity was home we will be good friends as the way Union soldiers gulped the ever,” and later remarking, “I had got

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THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER tired of stay[ing] in that neighborhood. Rosetta must have been good at disguise, and yet, when it was time I knew that I could help you more to playing the part, too. She boasted for her to leave, they let her go and leave home than to stay.” how she could “drill as well as any never told anyone of her true identity. What conflict she had with her family man” and took up certain masculine Many of the known female soldiers is unclear, but perhaps the answer mannerisms, telling her mother, “I use had help in keeping their secret: lies in the independent spirit that all the tobacco I want” and also husbands, fiancés, family members. shines through Rosetta’s letters, admitting, “There is a good many Even so, it seems certain that particularly when she writes, “I will temptations in the army. I got led Rosetta and the other women dress as I have a mind to for all away into this world So bad that I performed their duties well and anyone else [cares], and if they don’t sinned a good deal.” earned their fellow soldiers’ respect, let me Alone they will be sorry for it.” What exactly her sins were, she enough so those same soldiers were She also reveals her hopes of having never mentions, though in a letter willing to continue serving alongside her own farm, “in Wisconsin. On the written on Jan. 20, 1864, a few day them, and sometimes even testified in Prairie,” and her utter lack of fear of after her 21st birthday, she detailed a order to help the women earn “rebel bullets.” fistfight with another private in her veterans’ benefits. She does not seem the kind of young company: “Mr. Stephen Wiley pitched woman who would be happy in a on me and I give him three or four traditionally feminine role, and pretty good cracks and he put indeed, over a year into her military downstairs with him Self.” What service, she wrote, “I have enjoyed caused the fight, Rosetta doesn’t say, myself the best since I have been but Wiley was court-martialed twice gone away from home than I ever did for drunkenness and once for theft before in my life. I have had plenty of during the fall of 1863, whereas money to spend and a good time Rosetta “never got to fighting but aSoldier[ing]. I find just as good once.” Still, standing at only 5 feet friends among Strangers as I do at tall, Rosetta, according to her own home.” She goes on to suggest that account, easily defended herself from she might re-enlist for five years and Wiley, even though his records $800. “I can do that if I am a mind to. describe him as seven inches taller. What do you think about that?” She was an able soldier, performed How Rosetta managed to serve her duties as required, and without discovery is one of the great participated in combat bravely. questions surrounding not just her, Perhaps that was all the convincing but all 250 known female Civil War she needed to do. soldiers. There are clues, however. Interestingly, aside from her family, Sarah Rosetta Wakeman aka Lyons Wakeman She must have talked a good game there were some soldiers who were – Library of Congress photo when it came to engaging in typical aware of what Rosetta was doing. A male enterprises; she peppers many year into her service, after having Rosetta herself did not seem overly of her letters with questions about the seen no one from home, she troubled by her deception. As part of family farm – even, in her last letter recounted how she “could hardly her duties, she was a guard at Carroll home, asking her father to “write all Stand it” when she learned that the Prison, where there were three the particulars about that farm and let 109th New York State Volunteers female prisoners: “One of them was a me know how much stock you have were stationed nearby. She obtained Major in the union army and she went got to keep this summer and how a pass to visit and “found Henry into battle with her men. When the many Calves you raise and how Austin and Perry Wilder. They knew Rebels bullets was acoming like a many hogs you have got.” Perhaps, me just as Soon as they see me. You hail storm she rode her horse and too, as the eldest child, Rosetta had better believe I had a good visit with gave orders to the men. Now She is worked as her father’s farmhand and them.” The two young men clearly in Prison for not doing aCcordingly to was no stranger to physical labor. recognized Rosetta, despite her the regulation of war.” After this brief description, plus noting the two

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Confederate spies were “smart under fire about 4 hours and laid on soldiers and adventurers. “From looking women and [have] good the field of battle all night.” What is hearing of the feats performed by my education,” Rosetta makes no further obvious is that even if her choices Southern forefathers and kinfolk,” remarks. had caused concern, her family loved Roosevelt wrote in his memoirs many Did she guard these women directly? and respected her enough to years later, “I felt a great admiration If so, did she and the female soldier preserve her letters and keep her for men who were fearless and who acknowledge each other? What did photograph safe and her memory could hold their own in the world, and Rosetta think about the possibility alive for generations. Hopefully, they I had great desire to be like them.” that she, too, might be imprisoned? found a way to be proud of her, too. Such feats of heroism included duty We’ll never know. Surely it must have for the Confederacy during the Civil been comforting to find another Teddy Roosevelt’s War. Unlike the Roosevelt men, none woman in the ranks, even if it was of whom served in the war, virtually also distressing to know that Confederate Uncles every male relative or acquaintance imprisonment could be her own fate. By EDWARD P. KOHN, New York on the Bulloch side joined the Likewise, Rosetta was not much Times, June 25, 2014 Confederacy. The two leading heroes concerned with the reasons for the On June 19, 1864, the Confederacy of Mittie’s stories were her brother war. Though she guarded lost one of its most effective weapons Irvine Bulloch and her half brother “contraband,” slaves who had been of the Civil War: In the Battle of James Dunwody Bulloch. captured or had escaped north and Cherbourg off the coast of France, Both men served on the water. When were considered spoils of war, she the Union warship Kearsarge sunk war broke out, 19-year-old Irvine left never mentions slavery directly. Even the notorious Confederate commerce the University of Pennsylvania to join when she notes that the army had raider, the Alabama. In its two-year the Confederate Navy. James initially drafted “black men as well as White career, the Alabama had claimed 65 became a Confederate captain and men,” she makes no judgment. She ships, totaling $6 million, a huge hit to blockade-runner, but was later tasked never even once mentions the idea of the Union war effort. The Alabama with the secret mission of having preserving the Union, though when continued to wreak posthumous ships built for the Navy in England. she learns of the New York draft riots, havoc after the war; since it had been Their exploits made a great impact on she writes, “I would like to see some built in England, in the late 1860s the Roosevelt. Even during the war, of them Copperheads come down United States pressed a claim for letters and news of Roosevelt’s two here and get killed.” And she then damages, even threatening to invade uncles reached the Roosevelt home blames officers for the war’s dragging Canada as compensation. on East 20th Street and were shared on, stating “if they would knock down But for all that, the most enduring with the children. In early 1862 the the officers’ pay to 13$ a month, this effect of the Alabama may have been elder learned war would soon be settle.” But it its influence on a young Theodore that Irvine had run the Union seems Rosetta’s biggest concerns Roosevelt. blockade to deliver 14,000 Enfield were getting her pay, helping her The New York Roosevelts were sober rifles to Savannah, Ga. In February family, participating in battle and Yankee bankers and businessmen. 1863 young Irvine wrote movingly, deciding what she would do after the Roosevelt’s father, Theodore Sr., was “The life [at sea] is as hard as it is war. a partner in the family business exciting, as painful to be away from Regardless of what Rosetta might Roosevelt and Son, a member of the home and family as it is pleasant to have done had she lived, it is safe to Union League Club and a leading think I am doing my all for my say that her parents, Harvey and philanthropist. oppressed country.” Emily, both native New Yorkers and But Young Roosevelt’s mother, The lifetime effect of such words at least fifth-generation Americans, Martha “Mittie” Bulloch, was a classic during wartime on a 4-year-old boy, never anticipated that their eldest Southern belle who raised her already outfitted in his own Zouave daughter would be living as a man children on stories of the Old South uniform – “Is me a soldier?”, he asked and writing letters home from the and the era of slavery, grand – is incalculable. In 1905 President front lines of the Union Army’s Red plantations, and chivalrous duels. Roosevelt visited Roswell, Ga., the River campaign, where she “was Quite in contrast to the dour site of Mittie Bulloch’s childhood Roosevelts, the Bullochs included

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THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER home, Bulloch Hall. In a speech, the ship’s true nature and presented the time so much,” Roosevelt wrote in Roosevelt underscored his Southern them to the Queen’s advocate. The his diary on Sept. 14, 1881. “Spent ancestry. “Men and women,” the documents lay untouched on the most of the day with the dear old sea president asked the crowd, “don’t you official’s desk for five crucial days as captain, Uncle Jimmie Bulloch.” By think I have the ancestral right to the man suffered a complete mental this time Roosevelt was working on a claim a proud kinship with those who breakdown. Meanwhile, Irvine book about the naval history of the showed their devotion to duty as they planned the Alabama’s escape. On War of 1812, and he sought the saw the duty, whether they wore the July 29, 1862, the Alabama took to advice of Captain Bulloch, who gray or whether they wore the blue?” the seas ostensibly for a trial run, familiarized his nephew with naval complete with a party of well-wishers warfare in the time of sailing ships. on board. Once at sea, the sightseers Roosevelt published his book the were sent back to shore by tug while following year, acknowledging his the Alabama continued on to the uncle, “without whose advice and Azores to be outfitted for war. For the sympathy this work would probably next two years the Confederate never have been written.” cruiser wrought havoc on Union His Confederate uncles reinforced an shipping. important aspect of Roosevelt’s In the Azores the Alabama took on personality that has been mostly cannons, equipment and a crew that forgotten: the 26th president loved included Midshipman Irvine Bulloch. the water. Thanks to his uncles, Irvine was the cruiser’s youngest Roosevelt’s mother during his officer, and was said to have fired its boyhood had spun tales of, as he last shot before being sunk during the later recounted, “ships, ships, ships Battle of Cherbourg. After the sinking, and the fighting of ships, until they an Aug. 8, 1864, notice in The New sank into the depths of my soul.” York Times reported the survival of Indeed, from a young age, Roosevelt Midshipman Bulloch, presumably for conducted a love affair with all things the benefit of his New York relatives. nautical. Summers were spent rowing Theodore Roosevelt’s contact with and sailing on Long Island Sound. His his uncles was not limited to letters most common practice was to row and stories. In his memoirs he around Center Island, which jutted recounted that shortly after the war into Oyster Bay Harbor, and was both uncles had traveled incognito attached to the mainland by a narrow, Theodore Roosevelt, 4 years old, Credit from Britain to to visit low-lying isthmus. Low tide would Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton their sister and her family – although force Roosevelt to portage his boat Library, Harvard University only Irvine may have actually made from the Sound back into the harbor. the trip. As Irvine and James had Diary entries note which sails he Central to the uncles’ nautical been denied amnesty offered to used, and he peppered his language heroism was the Alabama. James Confederate soldiers, they settled in with nautical terms (“running sea”; had commissioned the construction of Liverpool to work in the cotton trade. “shipped water”). Throughout his life, the cruiser by the British shipbuilders During the Roosevelt family’s Roosevelt wrote and spoke Laird Brothers near Liverpool, testing European grand tour of 1869, the extensively about the need for a the limits of British neutrality during family was reunited in Liverpool, and strong American Navy – “Our the war. Everyone involved in its Roosevelt saw the uncles again Peacemaker,” as he once put it. construction assumed the ship was during his honeymoon in 1881. While Roosevelt’s actions with the being built for the Confederacy. Its Roosevelt recounted these visits in Rough Riders cavalry regiment during sides were even pierced for cannon two separate diaries kept as a boy the War with Spain have received ports. America’s minister to London, and as a young man, and also in his most attention, arguably Roosevelt’s Charles Francis Adams Sr., collected 1913 Autobiography. “Have enjoyed most important role in the conflict documents and affidavits testifying to

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THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER came before Congress’ declaration of Roosevelt’s final official acts as remaining near the water he loved so war in April 1898. Until then he had president was to welcome home the much. served as assistant secretary of the “Great White Fleet” – so-called Despite his later reputation as a Navy. With the secretary, John D. because the hulls of the ships were western figure – cowboy, rancher, Long of Massachusetts, usually painted peacetime white, rather than hunter – Roosevelt’s lifelong love of away, Roosevelt had significant wartime gray – when it arrived at all things nautical confirmed his latitude in the conduct of the office on Hampton Roads, Va., in February eastern, urban origins as the only the eve of war. He helped build up 1909. American president born in New York the Navy into a modern fighting force Early on the morning of June 18, City. And Roosevelt had his Bulloch that could challenge the Spanish 1910, America welcomed home uncles to thank for this. One of the Empire at sea. Indeed, the whole former president Roosevelt as he many ironies of Theodore Roosevelt point of Roosevelt’s famous charge returned from a yearlong African is that this quintessential American during the Battle of San Juan was safari and trip through Europe. His president who spoke of “True that the Navy had the Spanish fleet reception was a decidedly naval Americanism” was so heavily bottled up in Santiago harbor: Taking affair. As his own ship, the Kaiserin influenced by two infamous members the heights above the city made the Auguste Victoria, steamed toward of the Confederacy. Spanish ships’ position untenable, Manhattan, she was escorted by the and this loss of naval power brought new battleship South Carolina and an end to Spanish rule in the Western five torpedo destroyers, the Hemisphere. construction of all the ships having More well-known is the fact that while been authorized during Roosevelt’s assistant secretary, Roosevelt sent presidency. Roosevelt stood orders to Commodore George Dewey mesmerized as the massive and the Pacific Squadron to, in the battleship passed to starboard. Along case of war with Spain, resupply at the decks of the battleship her crew Hong Kong and move on Spain’s “dressed” her sides, while the marine major holding in the East, the band in their scarlet uniforms could Philippines. Dewey’s complete victory easily be spied on the quarterdeck. at Manila was one shared by Just as eight bells struck on all the Roosevelt; no wonder that his family ships, the band began playing “The and close friends advocated that Star-Spangled Banner,” the large Roosevelt stay in that office rather national ensigns were hoisted at the than resign for a cavalry commission. stern and along the entire lengths of As the Navy would play such a vital all the ships red, white and blue role in victory, Roosevelt’s tenure as bunting unrolled. For Roosevelt, it assistant secretary of the Navy was was an impressive introduction to the sure to be rewarded. South Carolina, the first American Roosevelt received that reward dreadnought he had ever seen and anyway, first becoming governor of an early example of the massive New York, and then vice president ships that would play such a key role and president. While president, in projecting American power during Roosevelt continued to advocate for a the 20th century. larger and more modern Navy. In Roosevelt made his final home at 1907 he dispatched a battle fleet to Sagamore Hill on Oyster Bay, circumnavigate the globe to spending entire days rowing with his demonstrate America’s growing wife, Edith, on the Long Island military power, especially after Sound. When he died at home on acquiring overseas possessions in Jan. 6, 1919, he was buried at a the war that he helped win. One of nearby Oyster Bay cemetery,

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