ry
was indescribably rough and the weather swelteringly hot, with heavy
rains for day or night. The endurance of the men was tried to the
utmost limit. Disabilities resulting from excessive fatigue reduced
the infantry to fourteen men, and as they were worn out and without
shoes when the new supplies reached me July 29th, they were returned
to the supply camp for rest, and the cavalry under Lieutenant A. L.
Smith, who had just joined his troop, continued the campaign. Heavy
rains having set in, the trail of the hostiles, who were all on foot,
was entirely obliterated.

"I desire particularly to invite the attention of the Department
Commander to Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood, the only officer who has
been with me through the whole campaign. His courage, energy and loyal
support during the whole time; his encouraging example to the command
when work was the hardest and prospects darkest; his thorough
confidence and belief in the final successes of the expedition, and
his untiring efforts to make {47} it so, have placed me under
obligations so great that I cannot even express them."

Through the formal language of a military report crops out the respect
of a commanding officer who knew whereof he spoke, the acknowledgment
that here was a young subordinate who never despaired, never gave up,
who always did his part and more than his part, and who placed his
commanding officer under obligations which he was unable "even to
express." That was a great deal for any young man to secure. To-day,
after the Great War, there are many such extracts from official
reports and all are unquestionably deserved. But they are the result
of a nation awakened to patriotism when all went in together. In 1886,
when the nation was at peace, when commercial pursuits were calling
all young men to make their fortune, young Leonard Wood answered a
much less universal call to do his work in a fight that had none of
the flare or glory of the front line trench in Flanders.

Out of it all came to him at a very early age practice in handling men
in rough country in rough times--men who were not puppets even {48}
though they were regular army privates. They had to be handled at
times with an iron hand, at times with the softest of gloves; and an
officer to gain their confidence and respect had to show them that he
could beat them at their own game and be one of them--and still
command.

The Congressional Medal of Honor awarded him years later for t