On the isle of Cuba, in the battle of San Juan Hill, fell the gallant
Captain William Owen O'Neill of the regiment of Rough Riders. Peace
to his ashes!
I have been told the circumstances surrounding his death by friends,
who were soldiers of his company. They were lying under cover behind
every available shelter to dodge a hailstorm of Mauser bullets,
awaiting the order to advance. Captain O'Neill exposed himself and
was instantly killed. How could he avoid it? How could it have been
otherwise? What can keep an Irishman down in the ditch when bullets
are flying in air, "murmuring dirges" and "shells are shrieking
requiems?" You may readily imagine an Irishman on the firing line,
poking his head above the ground, exclaiming: "Did yez see that? And
where did that Dago pill come from now? Shure it spoke Spanish, but
it did not hit me at all, at all, Begorra!"
The activity of the Sphinx ended not with the battle of San Juan
Hill, for it cast the luster of its glorious power on the gallant
Lieutenant Colonel of the famous regiment of Rough Riders, Theodore
Roosevelt, and on him it conferred in time the greatest honor to be
achieved on earth, it made him President of the United States of
America.
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