When the US Battleship Maine was blown up in Havana, Teddy Roosevelt and others knew that war was inevitable- and he wanted to go and fight. When Congress gave the OK to form a volunteer cavalry brigade, Roosevelt got busy recruiting-specifically men who could ride and shoot- and soon had applications from all over the US.  Within weeks he had nearly 1,000 men from every walk of life- lawmen, cowboys, Indians, gamblers, college athletes, clergymen, backwoodsmen, frontiersmen, prospectors, and more- all of whom had one thing in common- they wanted adventure and they wanted to fight for the American flag. This is Chapter 1 from Teddy Roosevelt's Book "The Rough Riders", written in 1898. We will present this book in its entirety in the months to come at our long format story podcast 1001 Stories For The Road, where we just finished "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs and where we just started "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (which I have edited to make family friendly).. We encourage you to subscribe to 1001 Stories For the Road- the link is below. Save at Ancestry now and discover your roots! Use www.ancestry.com/1001 and support our sponsors! TWO NEW MEMBER ONLY SHOWS NOW AVAILABLE TO  PATRONS!  www.patreon.com/1001storiesnetwork.  Thank you. Join for one dollar a month and get THE BEST OF 1001, mostly ad free! Join at 2.99/month and up and get PRIME CUTS- visit us at http://.patreon.com/1001storiesnetwork and check us out! YOUR REVIEWS  AND SUBSCRIPTIONS AT APPLE/ITUNES AND ALL ANDROID HOSTS ARE NEEDED AND APPRECIATED! LINKS BELOW...   Catch ALL of our shows at one place by going to www.BESTOF1001STORIES.com- our home website with Megaphone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices