seeming to be anxious to get to the firing line. For a while we kept
up a desultory fire, but as we could not locate the enemy (he all the
time keeping up a hot fire on our position), we became disgusted, and
lay down and kept silent. Private Marshall was here seriously wounded
while standing in plain view of the enemy, trying to point them out to
his comrades.

There were frequent calls for men to carry the wounded to the rear,
to go for ammunition, and as night came on, to go for rations and
entrenching tools. A few colored soldiers volunteered, as did some
from the Rough Riders. It then happened that two men of the Tenth were
ordered to the rear by Lieutenant Fleming, Tenth Cavalry, who was then
present with part of his troop, for the purpose of bringing either
rations or entrenching tools, and Colonel Roosevelt seeing so many men
going to the rear, shouted to them to come back, jumped up and drew
his revolver, and told the men of the Tenth that he would shoot the
first man who attempted to shirk duty by going to the rear, that he
had orders to hold that line and he would do so if he had to shoot
every man there to do it. His own men immediately informed him that
"you won't have to shoot those men, Colonel. We know those boys." He
was also assured by Lieutenant Fleming, of the Tenth, that he would
have no trouble keeping them there, and some of our men shouted, in
which I joined, that "we will stay with you, Colonel." Everyone who
saw the incident knew the Colonel was mistaken about our men trying to
shirk duty, but well knew that he could not admit of any heavy detail
from his command, so no one thought ill of the matter. Inasmuch as the
Colonel came to the line of the Tenth the next day and told the men of
his threat to shoot some of their members and, as he expressed it, he
had seen his mistake and found them to be far different men from what
he supposed. I thought he was sufficiently conscious of his error not