Then, after a period of suspense in which the Colonel was a veritable Paul Revere in urging the nation to prepare, war actually came. On this momentous day the former President of the United States received the news in about the same spirit that Bill Jones and Henry Brown and the rest of his Oyster Bay neighbors greeted it. Colonel Roosevelt forgot that he had been twice President of the United States. He remembered only that America wanted men.
The Colonel felt himself to be fully equipped. Aside from the fact that he was a retired Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, in the Santiago campaign he had served in the first fight as commander, had earned promotion to the rank of colonel in his regiment and had ended the campaign in command of the brigade.
The Colonel followed up his previous application to the Secretary of War, with the telegram from which these words are quoted:
“To the Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.
“In view of the fact that Germany is now actually engaged in war with us, I again earnestly ask permission to raise a division for immediate service at the front. My purpose would be, after some six weeks’ preliminary training here, to take it direct to France for intensive training, so that it could be sent to the front in the shortest possible time to whatever point was desired. I should, of course, ask no favors of any kind, except that the division be put in the fighting line at the earliest possible moment.
Meanwhile, while Colonel Roosevelt waited with the ardor of a boy the answer to this appeal, applications for military service abroad under him were pouring in from all sections of the country. News of his desire to fight in France had spread like wildfire, and every man who had served with the Colonel at Santiago, as well as every man who wished that he had served with him, wired, wrote and telephoned his application to serve now. Authors, artists, engineers, cowboys, clerks, lawyers, ministers, wanted to go to France with “Teddy.” “Battling” Nelson and “Kid” McCoy were among the applicants. North Carolina offered to send a company. This evidence of the loyalty of the red-blooded men who had fought his civic and military battles with him touched the Colonel deeply and very naturally increased the anxiety with which he awaited the answer from the War Department.