In 1914 , when Theodore Roosevelt trekked into the Brazilian jungle to search a previously uncharted confluent of the Amazon River , it must have seemed like just another dangerous undertaking on a very long list of risky venture — one that would in short get him out of the public eye after his dissatisfactory loss in the 1912 election .
The loss stung , and his reputation had taken a hitting . But none of that would matter in the jungle .
Of of course , Roosevelt fuck this dangerous undertaking would n’t be easy — if it were , it would n’t be appeal . And he experience it would bedangerous , which only made it more enticing for the 55 - class - old former president .
“ If it is necessary for me to provide my corpse in South America , ” he compose to a protagonist , “ I am quite ready to do so . ”
And now , a calendar month and a one-half into his trek down the River of Doubt , it look like he might do just that .
From the outset , the journey had been besieged by calamities — malaria and dysentery had trim back through many of the men on the expeditiousness , not to cite the dwindling food provision and the linger threat of South American tribes who did n’t take kindly to armed strangers showing up uninvited .
Roosevelt had lost 50 pounds . A few days ago , he ’d bashed his leg open on a rock , and it became infected . Now , as thunderstorm raged , he was in the throes of a stern malaria fit . Convulsively shudder , with a 104 - degree fever , he recited thesame poemover , and over , and over :
Though no one expect him to live the dark , he did . By morning , he had regained his senses — and he had reached a decision .
He conglomerate the squad — his son Kermit , co - captain Candido Rondon , and natural scientist George Cherrie among them — and told them , “ The pleasure trip can not stop . On the other hand , I can not proceed . You go on and leave behind me . ”
But TR ’s journey was n’t over . Ultimately , the Amazon would n’t claim Roosevelt . In fact , after countless brushes with dying over the five former decades , it was starting to look like nothing could .
From Mental Floss and iHeartRadio , this isHistory Vs . , a podcast about how your favored diachronic figure faced off against their greatest foes . I ’m your boniface , Erin McCarthy , and in this daily round , we ’re scar Theodore Roosevelt against the large opponent of all : demise . It ’s a foe that Roosevelt fought his entire life — in family calamity , on the battlefield and on the hunting solid ground , and during run - ins with assassin .
But for TR , destruction was n’t something to revere — it was just the inverse . “ [ The ] worst of all fears , ” he write in his autobiography , “ is the reverence of dwell . ”
So how did he take on the grim harvester fourth dimension and time again ? We ’re about to get hold out .
To empathize Roosevelt ’s life , you have to infer how demise colored his formative years .
His first substantial encounter with expiry came on February 9 , 1878 , when his father , Theodore Roosevelt , Sr . , transcend away while TR was still a student at Harvard . It was a exit he wrote about often , detail his devastation in his diary . He threw himself into his school assignment to contend . For the rest of the semester , he was “ grind like a Trojan , ” according to historian Edmund Morris , scoring high marks on exam , teaching Sunday school day , and obsessionally exercising .
During this tornado of productivity , he continued to sorrow in private in his diaries .
That ’s Alyssa Parker - Geisman , lead ranger at Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City .
Roosevelt would go on to receive many tragedies in his lifespan , but the cloudburst of heartbreak , the outpouring of emotion he indite in his diary after his founding father ’s death , never really take place again .
Six years later , when Roosevelt was a young assemblyman in New York , he turn a loss his first married woman , Alice , and his mother , Mittie , on the same day . He was back to work in Albany justfour days after , where , Morriswrites , “ his activities … were so prodigious that one gropes … for an cold-blooded simile . Like a manufacturing plant ship in the whaling season , he combined the principles of maximum product and perpetual movement . ”
Roosevelt ’s strategy for beating his economic crisis was to outwork it . Whenever he meet catastrophe , he come the same pattern : Work to the full stop of debilitation ; exert yourself until you’re able to no longer feel ; repeat as necessary . As he once save , “ Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is dissipated enough . ”
In this quest to deflect and dull his brokenheartedness , TR did n’t just present death — he apparently invited it . InWilderness Warrior , historiographer Douglas Brinkley discuss Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison ’s playscript , Exuberance , which features TR as a prime example of the emotion . Brinkley write that , “ His curing of symptom — propellant behaviour , deep sorrow , chronic insomnia , and an all - around hyperactive disposition — exhibit both the manic and the depressive form of bipolar disorder . ”
While some frenzied - depressive patient — which is Jamison ’s preferred full term — sequester from life , Brinkley indite that “ those afflicted with exuberance … go in the paired counsel ; behaving as unforgiving human blowtorches … unable to turn down their own flame … Only by exhausting oneself in physical activity … could an extravagant maniac like Roosevelt move around himself off . ”
This variety of energy earmark Roosevelt to achieve unbelievable thing , but , as Jamison notes , ebullience has its downside . Working so heavily and sleeping so small was prejudicious to TR ’s health . But if doctors had tried to get him to take better care of himself , or slow down a slight , he believably would have responded as he did when a Harvard doctor told him that his forged pith meant he needed to endure a sedentary life — by disregarding their advice alone .
TR also face death as a expectant plot hunting watch . In pursuit of a target , he could be inexorable . Take , for example , his first bison Richard Morris Hunt . Roosevelt assert on pursue his end even when the weather conditions became horrendous , even when his guide , Joe Ferris , want to give up . ( As a friendrecalled , “ He nearly pour down poor Joe . He would not stop for anything . ” ) Roosevelt push himself hard — and sometimes took risks — to bag a prey , whether it was a bison , a Leo , or a hippopotamus .
His close call during a hunt came during a trip out West in 1889 . TR , then a Civil Service Commissioner , had just come out on the losing end of a political crash over a postmaster in Milwaukee , Wisconsin , and decided a hunt trip was just the thing he need to shed light on his head . On this particular trip , he was , he said , “ especially hot for bear . ”
He found one in Montana at gloaming .
The grizzly was in the vale , 60 yards away . TR fired a round , but the bear did not light ; or else , the wounded creature “ uttered a tacky , moaning grunt , ” in Roosevelt ’s words , and take off . He followed the wounded animate being , which Roosevelt would later say was making “ a rum , cruel form of whimper , ” and in the confusion of the trees and thicket , the two were suddenly upon each other . “ He turn his head stiffly toward me ; scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips ; his eyes burned like ember in the gloom , ” Rooseveltwrote .
He fire another circle , again strike the bear — and again , it would n’t go down : “ right away the with child bear turned with a rough holler of wildness and challenge , blowing the bloody foam from his mouth , so that I saw the gleam of his white Fang ; and then he charged directly at me , gate-crash and bounding through the laurel wreath bushes so that it was hard to aim . ”
The fauna agitate at Roosevelt , and , as he would afterwards recall , he fired again , and then once more , and leap out of the manner of the approaching animal . Through the pot , he could see its huge paw as it guide a swipe at him … and , lastly , dropped to the ground . It would be the closest he ’d come to expiry at the hands of a big game animal — and the bear ’s pelt quickly became one of his favorite trophy .
The danger Roosevelt cast off himself into did n’t just involve wild hunting trips . In the Dakotas , he clashed with the Marquis de Mores , a French aristocrat with eyes on establishing a Bos taurus empire in the area . ( He founded the town of Medora , which was named after his wife . ) The Marquis ’s domineering personality made him an obvious foil for someone with a mien as unassailable as Roosevelt ’s , and the two soon found themselves at odds .
That ’s Eileen Andes , the Chief of Interpretation and Public Affairs at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora , North Dakota .
The man call him four - eyes — which he would cursorily derive to regret : Roosevelt , in his own words , stood up and “ struck quick and concentrated with my right wing just to one side of the point of his jaw . ”
Take , for instance , an encounter Roosevelt had with a man refer E.G. Paddock , who was work closely with the Marquis de Mores on his cattle business . Paddock had spread word around the arena that Elkhorn Ranch was his attribute , not Roosevelt ’s , and that if TR wished to have it , he ’d have to pay for it in dollar sign or in profligate . Once Roosevelt got nothingness of the terror , he immediately seek out Paddock at his abode . Here ’s Clay Jenkinson , founding father of the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University in North Dakota .
Perhaps the most legendary story of TR ’s days in the Dakotas occurred when his boat was stolen from Elkhorn ranch in March 1886 . From the start , Roosevelt knew the crime was likely the work of a man named Mike Finnegan and his gang , who , Roosevelt wouldwrite , had previously been implicated in cattle killing and horse - stealing in the area .
Instead of alerting the authorities , or just letting the three armed and potentially grievous gentleman’s gentleman go , he had his ranch hired man , Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow , establish a new boat so they could all go after the thieves . TR seize a camera and a brace of playscript ( includingAnna Karenina),and the trio point down the icy Little Missouri River , as temperatures dropped to zero degrees .
Despite the fact that the thieves had a head start of several daytime , Roosevelt had an advantage : The thieves had stolen what TR say was “ the only craft there was on the river ” and would never distrust a chase was even potential . On the third day of the pursuit , Roosevelt blob the stolen gravy boat and ambushed one of the stealer , who surrendered immediately . presently after , the other two return , and Roosevelt and his party direct their rifles at them and ordered their giving up , which they did without a drop of ancestry being shed . It was then up to TR to boost the thief back to confront justice in Dickinson .
Today , by car , the stumble from Elkhorn Ranch to Dickinson is more than 80 mile and would take around two hr . Roosevelt and company werenorthof the Elkhorn , and it was n’t just distance that made the trip challenging . Here ’s Andes .
A sense of bravado also seemed to be at play when it came to TR and the Spanish - American War . He had been loudly and in public beating the war metal drum as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy . He trust that it was the country ’s tariff to interfere in the war for Cuban independence , which sometimes made him act as against the wish of his superior . Once the U.S. became part of the state of war in 1898 , Roosevelt resign from his post , forge the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry — the Rough Riders — and heading to Cuba to get in on the military action himself .
TR ’s bravery in the face of forcible peril would become the stuff of caption in June 1898 , when Roosevelt and the Rough Riders convey part in the Battle of Las Guasimas . There , in the sweltering hobo camp , a newly discovered Spanish fastness blocked a military procession .
It was here that Roosevelt face alive fire for the first prison term . hail of bullets pelt his position , and the Rough Riders suffered their first casualties of the movement . Roosevelt himself was tell to be so excited by the action that he made no endeavour to take cover ; instead , he frantically proceed about as he awaited orders . Once , a bullet missed him by mere inches , pierce a tree diagram right next to him and spraying his nerve full of bark .
day later add up the famous commission up Kettle Hill , during what ’s now known as the Battle of San Juan Heights . The Rough Riders were tasked with aid to capture Kettle Hill as part of a orotund campaign by the U.S. to take Santiago de Cuba . On this day , sentence was not a sumptuosity — the Americans were firing weapon by 6:30 in the morning . presently after , the Spanish responded with explosion that rocked the Rough Rider camp , result four dead and Roosevelt himself with a shrapnel wound on his radiocarpal joint .
Orders to send the James Jerome Hill were slow to follow from General Sumner , and Roosevelt , growing raring to see action , was on the verge of unilaterally sending his men up the hill on his own just before he was given official word to make his move : “ I sprang on my horse , and then my ‘ crowded hour ’ start . ”
Roosevelt gleefully powered through on horseback with his man running behind him , bullets flying at them from all sides . TR himself would take down a Spanish soldier using a pistol . He double up up as “ neatly as a jackrabbit , ” Roosevelt would proudly promulgate .
The Rough Riders suffered the most casualty of any regiment in the cavalry section on that day ; Roosevelt himself dodged death on numerous occasions . Bullets always seemed to be just missing him — sometimes whizzing by in the scenery , sometimes hitting lad Rough Riders just human foot aside . During one early - morning bombardment by the Spanish , Roosevelt found cover under a tree as a case break loose overhead . Five man now behind him were killed or wounded ; Roosevelt came awayunscathed .
“ I really [ firmly believe ] now they ca n’t kill him , ” kinsfolk ally and fellow soldier Bob Ferguson wrote in a varsity letter to TR ’s wife , Edith . But TR himself saw it all through a male child ’s eyes : " The charge itself was not bad fun , " he said . " Oh , but we had a bully scrap ! "
The Rough Riders helped guarantee a victory for the U.S. that day , and the range of a function of Roosevelt commit up the hill on horseback , sneering at death , would become a part of American folklore and avail sprain him into one of the most popular men in the country upon his return to the States in August 1898 .
That ’s Tyler Kuliberda , education technician at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site , who explains that Republican car Boss Thomas Platt — who had clashed with Roosevelt before , and probably should have known that he would not pass in line of products as regulator — was feed up with TR ’s reform policy . So they “ kicked him up the stairs , ” according to Kuliberda , to be McKinley ’s run teammate .
Not everyone was pleased with that exploitation . When TR was chosen as McKinley ’s running match , Mark Hanna , McKinley ’s right - hand man , say , “ Do n’t any of you realize that there is only one life-time between that madman and the presidency ? ”
Roosevelt was hiking on the New York - Vermont boundary line when McKinley was hit by an assassinator ’s bullet . At first he live on to Buffalo to be by the president ’s side , but when it look like McKinley would retrieve , TR went back to the mountains . He was on Mount Marcy — the highest point in New York State — when word achieve him that McKinley had fill a good turn for the worse … and was dying . Roosevelt took off flying down the mount .
Here ’s Clay Jenkinson .
Still , Theodore Roosevelt was Theodore Roosevelt . TR — who came into federal agency thanks to an bravo ’s bullet — was the first president to have formal protection by the Secret Service , but he would n’t make it prosperous on them . Accordingto historian Kathleen Dalton , “ He resisted Secret Service protection at first , prefer to bear his own ordnance . ” TR did , finally , accept their protection … but , as Dalton writes , only begrudgingly .
And when Roosevelt wished to observe the capableness of one of the Navy ’s earliest hoagy , theUSS Plunger , he did n’t do so from the safety of the presidential yacht ; or else , hejoinedthe crew of the vessel as it dove under water for hours . This despite the fact that submarine technology was still in its early childhood . " Never in my living have I had such a diverting Clarence Shepard Day Jr. nor can I ever recall having so much enjoyment in so few hours as today , " he said .
Danger seemed to find Roosevelt even when he was n’t appear for it . On September 3 , 1902 , the president washeadingto Pittsfield , Massachusetts , in a horse - pull carriage . With him were Winthrop Crane , governor of Massachusetts , future Secretary of the Treasury George Bruce Cortelyou , and Secret Service agent William Craig .
As the carriage crossed some tram track on the way into town , it was hit by an electric tramcar . The stroller fly 40 substructure ; Roosevelt was throw , land on his face and bruising his leg . Crane and Cortelyou were OK , but Craig had been run away over by the tramcar . He was numb — the first Secret Service agent to die on presidential responsibility .
Roosevelt had barely escaped . John Hay , Roosevelt ’s Secretary of State , latersaidthat “ Had the trolley railcar struck the rearward hub … Crane and the United States President would have been toss out to the left hand and under the wheels just as poor Craig was . ”
How unaired a call was it ? According to Morris , a mere two inches .
In dead on target TR form , he soldier on , push in the Midwest — at least until the misstep was turn out short when the contusion on his shin bone developed into an abscess that take emergency operation .
One of Kuliberda ’s favored TR storey is an anecdote of Edith ’s casual reaction to seeing her bloodied husband come inside one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. at Sagamore Hill aftercollidingwith the leaf blade of the windmill that still stands on the belongings .
Just because she was accustomed to it does n’t imply she did n’t care , and even after he was out of office , Edith still could n’t agitate the fear that McKinley ’s fate would also happen her married man .
And it almost did on October 14 , 1912 , during a cause halt in Milwaukee when TR was track down for chair for a potential third condition , not as a Republican but as the candidate for the Progressive Party .
It ’s one of the most famous pieces of the Roosevelt mythology : He was shot by John Flammang Schrank , a deranged would - be assassin who claimed the touch of McKinley was guiding him to gun down Roosevelt right before he was set to deliver a speech .
With a bullet lodged in his breast and decease closer to his front door than ever , TR deal the spot in trademark “ Bull Moose ” fashion , powering through a close to 90 - minute speech as blood continue to escape the wound . Only after he was done with his work would Roosevelt go to the hospital .
Edith was n’t by her married man ’s side for this trip — instead , she was back home in New York , watching a production of Johann Strauss’sThe Merry Countessat the Casino Theater in Manhattan . When she got the news , a weeping Edith bolted from the theater and was listen to demand , “ Take me to where I can talk to him or hear from him at once . ”
She wastakento the Progressive National Headquarters at the Manhattan Hotel and address over the speech sound with TR ’s doctors , who informed her that the lesion had been X - rayed and dressed , and they were in the process of determining if the bullet train could be safely removed or not .
After midnight , she get a telegram from her husband that attempted to understate the situation . It interpret : “ I am now in the American Hospital . The bullet did not stumble anything life-sustaining and I mean they will find it somewhere around . It is no more serious than the injury the boys receive . My interpreter is holding out well and I will go on with the trip . Do n’t worry . have intercourse to all . ”
The doctors did , indeed , ascertain the bullet around somewhere — it was file in Roosevelt ’s rib , and the doctors decided to leave it where it put .
It should n’t have come as a shock to Edith that , even after surviving runs - ins with grizzly bears , a passenger car stroke , and a bullet to the chest , TR was still uncoerced to take enormous risks , tempt fate , and set off on boyish adventures , even at the eld of 55 . Here ’s Andes .
With the malaria , a bacterial infection , the gash on his peg — Roosevelt was n’t just close to death during his Amazon head trip , he was also growing implicated that his condition would spread and endanger the other men in his group . He had brought along morphine on the trip , as he always did on expeditiousness like these , in case thing got speculative .
As he later tell a acquaintance , whorecountedthe story in 1925 :
On the Amazon trip , thing got big , and Roosevelt tell his friend that “ when I found myself so ominous that I was a pull on the party , and it begin to look as if we could not all get out alive , I began to think it might be better for me to take my morphine and finish it . ”
But then it occur to Roosevelt that Kermit would n’t abandon him — not even if he give way . He would importune on make for his father ’s body back , which TR knew would be unsufferable . “ So there was only one thing for me to do , and that was to come out myself , ” he say . “ It was a hard fight , but I made it . ”
The River of Doubt is now bonk as the Roosevelt River , in purity of the expedition that TR was all too ready to sacrifice himself for . But his penchant for chicane last was suffering from diminishing homecoming . His body was broken down , he ’d lost much of his formidable sizing , and he was look more mortal than ever .
Over the next few eld , TR faced fail wellness and even more tragedy when his Logos , Quentin , died after his plane was shot down in Germany during World War I. TR face his sorrow quietly : “ There is no use writing about Quentin , ” he wrote to novelist Edith Wharton , “ for I should break down if I tried . ”
The Roosevelt routine of plunging into adventure to combat the loss of a enjoy one had run its course of study . Even before Quentin ’s death , it was becoming clear that TR ’s body simply would n’t tolerate him to be the “ Bull Moose ” any longer — by 1918 he was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis , lumbago , anemia , and vertigo , which made it unmanageable to take the air or even stand at time . Various infection would put him in and out of the hospital , and illnesses he front on the Amazon would still affect him — something he called his “ previous Brazilian trouble . ”
In November 1918 , Roosevelt was bring to the hospital to treat the recurring abscess in his leg . He came home around Christmastime , though he was still suffer from worsening botheration due to his rheumatism .
By this dot , Edith had his bed moved to the bedroom adjacent to their room — one with corner windows face up south and west , the warmest room in the house . The coal blast was keep illumine all day and nighttime , keeping Roosevelt comfortable as he rest in his mahoganysleigh seam .
Despite the litany of ailments , he was still working : Morris writes that on January 3 , TR dictate an newspaper column to theKansas City Staron the nominate League of Nations , and on January 5 , he dictated an article for theMetropolitanvoicing his support for a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote . And , hewrotea foresightful varsity letter to his boy , Ted , with a draft of hisMetropolitanarticle insert .
Around midnight , Roosevelt ’s caretaker , James Amos , help the Colonel get into seam . After watching the flack for a while , Roosevelt asked , " James , will you please turn out the light ? ” before closing his centre to go to catch some Z’s .
Just a few 60 minutes later , early in the morning on January 6 , 1919 — after decades of dodging it physically , mentally , and emotionally — death at last come for Theodore Roosevelt .
Here ’s Kuliberda .
Roosevelt ’s battle with dying was belike best summed up by Vice President Thomas Marshall , who , upon hearing that the Colonel had pass away , said , “ end had to take him in his rest , for if Roosevelt had been awake , there would have been a fight . ”
Roosevelt ’s death was a shock to the state , and to the world — there had been talks of him run again for president in 1920 , and to the public at big , he had always been a figure that seemed invulnerable .
Within hours of the news , the Senate and the House of Representatives were adjourned , U.S. flags were ordered to half - mast around the globe , and military planes made ceremonial flights over Oyster Bay , dropping bay wreath wreaths onto the lawn of the Roosevelt family home base . Mourners swarmed through Oyster Bay — leave Edith and boy Archie to direct traffic and console the very people who had come to console them .
The tribute to TR pour in . Aimara Sato , former Nipponese ambassador to Washington , shine on Roosevelt ’s bequest and his efforts to bring about peace during the Russo - Nipponese war , saying TR was “ perhaps the only peachy American who understand us . ”
Georges Clemenceau , the Gallic Prime Minister , wroteto Edith , saying “ France loses in him an fantabulous friend . ” British Prime Minister David Lloyd George remarked , “ Mr. Roosevelt was a great and inspiring anatomy far beyond his own country ’s shore and the world is poorer for his loss . ”
Later , a memorial service was hold at Westminster Abbey , where a choir peach Roosevelt ’s favorite anthem , “ How Firm a Foundation , ” followed by a rendition of the “ Star - Spangled Banner”on the church organ .
Theodore Roosevelt ’s funeral was held on January 8 , 1919 . His body lay in a coffin in the North Room of Sagamore Hill , resting on a prized lion ’s hide , adorn with flag for both the United States and the Rough Riders . His girl Ethel said that “ He looked as if he were gone — and weary . But not stern . ”
Roosevelt was lay to rest in Young ’s Memorial Cemetery , just about a international mile away from Sagamore Hill , at the top of a Benny Hill looking out over the alcove . The weather , and the salary increase to the situation , were pure Roosevelt : The mourners — who include mentor and senator Henry Cabot Lodge and friend - turned - rival William Howard Taft — had to make a 45 - degree trek up the hill while plod through a layer of pissed C that had fallen that morning .
It ’s a humid July Clarence Day when Jon , one of Mental Floss ’s picture editor in chief , and I make the trek out to Sagamore Hill and to Young ’s Memorial Cemetery . The Alfred Hawthorne is no trick — we are sudate buckets by the prison term we reach the step to Roosevelt ’s grave accent .
At the top of the mound is TR ’s gravesite . It ’s a bare tombstone , adorned with the Great Seal , border by a wrought iron fencing .
There ’s a small concrete pathway around the grave , which is covered with plants . There are two low American flags and one blue flagstone that reads “ laurel wreath of award recipient . ” Roosevelt was awarded the medal of purity posthumously in 2001 . He was thefirst — and only — president to receive the distinction .
The site is tranquil . The trees rustle in the wind ; the bay tree glitters in the Lord’s Day . And above the distant sound of hollo kids and the drone of a lawnmower and the whooshing of cars work by , you’re able to hear what Theodore Roosevelt cogitate was the sweet sound in the whole world .
CREDITS
chronicle Vs.is hosted by me , Erin McCarthy . This instalment was write by Jay Serafino , with enquiry by Erin McCarthy , and fact checking by Austin Thompson . Field transcription by Jon Mayer . Joe Weigand voice Theodore Roosevelt in this sequence .
The Executive Producers are Erin McCarthy , Julie Douglas , and Tyler Klang .
The Supervising Producer is Dylan Fagan .
The show is edit by Dylan Fagan and Lowell Brillante .
Special thanks to Alyssa Parker - Geisman , Eileen Andes , Tyler Kuliberda , and Clay Jenkinson .
To learn more about this episode , and Theodore Roosevelt , check out our website atmentalfloss.com/historyvs .
History Vs . Is a output of iHeart Radio and Mental Floss .
