Beschreibung:

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE, President. Typed letter signed ("Theodore Roosevelt") as President to Captain Archibald Butt, Aide-de-Camp, Washington, D.C. 15 January 1909. 2 pages, 4to, 172 x 200mm. (6 3/4 x 8 in.), on pages 1 and 4 of a 4-page sheet of White House stationery, matted with a contemporary photographic portrait by Pach Bros., glazed in a giltwood frame. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT COMPLETES AN ARDUOUS MILITARY CAVALRY TEST AND PROCLAIMS IT "NOT EXCESSIVE" In a brusque manner, the 60-year-old President, a dedicated horseman since his youth, describes a rigorous journey he and Captain Butt made on horseback. "I desire that this letter be filed with your record. On January 13th you rode with me from the White House, Washington, to the inn at Warrenton, Virginia and back, a distance which we have put at ninety-eight miles, but which I am now informed was one hundred and four. We covered the distance between 3:40 in the morning and 8:40 in the evening, including an hour and a quarter at Warrenton and five or ten minutes at each of the places we changed horses. We rode first to Fairfax Court-House, where we changed, getting on fresh horses; then to a farmhouse near Bull Run, where we again changed; then to Buckland, where we again changed; and then to Warrenton, using the same horses back to Buckland. On the return trip we thus covered each stage with the horses we had used upon it going out. After the first stages the horses were ordinary calvary horses, and two of yours were hard animals to ride, which materially added to the fatigue of the trip so far as you were concerned. The conditions of the weather and of the roads materially increased the difficulty of the ride, for from Centerville in, a blinding sleet storm drove in our faces, and from Fairfax Court-House in, we were in pitch darkness going over the frozen roads thru the sleet storm... You as well as the rest of the party returned in fine condition, convincing me of the fact that the test provided for the army and navy was not excessive."