The Rough Riders
After joining the Rough Riders, Frantz was assigned to A Company and given the rank of First Lieutenant, where he served as the Deputy Commander under Captain Buckey O'Neill. Traveling to Daiquirí, Cuba, the Rough Riders would engage, on June 24, 1898, in the Battle of Las Guasimas, the first clash between American and Spanish forces. Frantz fought valiantly and his performance caught Roosevelt’s eye.
On June 30, Colonel Leonard Wood, the commander of the Rough Riders, was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. Likewise, Lt. Colonel Roosevelt was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Rough Riders. On the following day, the fiercest battle of the Spanish-American War occurred: the Battle of San Juan Hill. Frantz’s skill during the battle would forever gain him Roosevelt’s friendship and trust. In the storming of the Spanish fortifications, the commanding officer of his company was killed. Frantz immediately took over the command and led the company to a successful charge. After the battle concluded, in recognition of Frantz’s service, Roosevelt promoted Frantz to the rank of Captain and commander of A Company of the Rough Riders.
On August 12, 1898, an armistice between the United States and Spain ended the Spanish-American War. In the coming months, on December 10, 1898, with the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the United States and Cuba gained its independence. Although Captain Frantz would leave military service behind him, he gained an abiding friendship with Roosevelt.
Read more about this topic: Frank Frantz
Famous quotes containing the words rough and/or riders:
“If a girl’s a stewardess, she might as well forget it after twenty-six. They no longer have compulsory retirement, but the girls get into a rut at that age. A lot of them start showing the rough life they’ve lived.”
—Beryl Simpson, U.S. employment counselor; former airline reservationist. As quoted in Working, book 2, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“To see the earth as we now see it, small and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night—brothers who see now they are truly brothers.”
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)