"Fall in!" shouted the shrill voice of "Teddy" Roosevelt.

And with that, troops of the First United States Cavalry trotted down the jammed pier of Port Tampa and tumbled on the steamer Yucatan, headed for Cuba and the Spanish American War.

"Teddy" Roosevelt and the Rough Riders reached Cuba in June of 1898, just four months after the American warship Maine has been sunk in Havana Bay. The explosion aboard that great white ship remains a mystery to this day. But because of it the Rough Riders and thousand of other Americans marched to war against the Empire of Spain, shouting "Remember the Maine!" They had humor and heroism, and Mr. Castor has drawn an excellent picture of these young Americans who stood united in their eagerness to finish the fighting and get home again. When they did—in a few months' time—Spain was finished as an empire and the United States stood on the threshold of the twentieth century as a world power.

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