From Roosevelt’s perspective, the dash up Kettle Hill was more dramatic. He lustily galloped up and down the line, “passing the shouting, cheering, firing men.” A bullet grazed his elbow as the Rough Riders took the hill. He could have stopped there, with a wound and a story to tell, but he looked over to San Juan Hill, where a U.S. division had engaged the Spanish, and judged he could take that, too. He let his horse go, jumped a fence, and with a handful of men (“bullets were ripping the grass all around us”) charged on foot. Looking back to see no one following, Roosevelt ran back to Kettle
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