Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt U.S. Army

26th President of the United States

The only President awarded the Medal of Honor

Only two fathers-sons awarded the Medal of Honor:

Arthur MacArthur, Jr. (1890 for Civil War) & General Douglas MacArthur (WWII 1942)

and

Theodore Roosevelt (2000 for Spanish- American War) & Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt,Jr. (WWII - 1942)

Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897, Roosevelt worked hard to modernize the Navy and prepare it for war, long before the Spanish-America war in 1898 was imminent. He was a fervent advocate of a two-ocean Navy.  The U.S. Army, under-manned and ill-prepared for war, began mobilization for a week before President McKinley's April 23, 1898, call for volunteers.  Among the ranks of the eager volunteers was the 40-year-old Roosevelt. 

When at last war was declared in 1898, he tried repeatedly to obtain command of a fighting force, resigning his position with the Navy to assist his friend Colonel Leonard Wood (an Army surgeon) in raising and training the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, a mounted cavalry for deployment in the Spanish-American War that became well known as the "Rough Riders".  In command of the Rough Riders, on July 1, 1898 Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt led his Rough Riders in the assault on Kettle Hill in Cuba and also participated in the taking of nearby San Juan Hill. As Roosevelt led his dismounted cavalry in the assault, he spurred his mount to lead the charge, finding himself well in advance of the rest of his troops. Armed only with a pistol and with only four or five men immediately behind him, he charged courageously into the heavy fire of the enemy to inspire and lead his Rough Riders to victory.

After the war, war hero Roosevelt was easily elected Governor of New York in 1898, and two years later ran successfully as Vice President under William McKinley.  Upon McKinley's death in 1901, Roosevelt became president, and was elected to his first full term in 1904.

No action during his presidency aroused as much controversy as his actions taken on building a canal through Panama at a time when the Spanish-American War and the emergence of the U.S. as a world power brought new urgency to the problem posed by the long trip around Cape Horn in South America.  Shortly after the Colombian Senate had rejected in 1903 a treaty approved by the U.S. Senate for building a canal through Colombia's province of Panama which French efforts had unsuccessfully started two decades earlier, Roosevelt -- while careful not to endorse a revolt then brewing in Panama for independence from Colombia -- discreetly let it be known in Panama that the U.S. would view it as a positive development and could be counted on to act accordingly.  A short, bloodless coup was successfully carried out in Panama -- with a contingent of U.S. Marines from the gunboat Nashville having just arrived there and several U.S. warships standing off shore -- and Panama's independence as a new nation was proclaimed the next day, November 3, 1903, quickly recognized by the United States and several Latin American nations. Fearing that the U.S. might choose an alternate route through Nicaragua, an enterprising group of Panamanian businessmen --  anxious to reap the commercial benefits of a canal -- seized the moment.   The new government quickly agreed to a treaty based on the original offer to Colombia  (calling for construction of the Panama Canal within a ten mile wide strip of territory bisecting the country and to be called the Canal Zone, which the U.S. would govern as if sovereign for perpetuity).  The treaty was quickly ratified by both nations.  

With the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 -- a massive engineering feat, the United States gained a strategic and economic advantage of immeasurable value. Roosevelt died seven months before the U.S. Pacific fleet passed through the Panama Canal for the first time in 1919. 

President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (for mediation of the Russo-Japanese peace treaty in 1905), though the one honor that he desired most, the Medal of Honor, eluded him during his lifetime.  (Once awarded the MOH -- see below, he became the only U.S. president and person awarded both the Nobel Peace Prize and the MOH.) 

Many historians believe the Medal of Honor was denied Roosevelt after the end of the war, based upon political pressure from Secretary of War Alger as a personal vendetta. Finally, after repeated efforts by surviving family and admirers, on the centennial of the war, Roosevelt was posthumously nominated for the Medal of Honor and, after its authorization by Congress, it was presented to his grandson by President Clinton.  Roosevelt was the only president to receive the Medal of Honor and -- with his son -- only the second father-son to have been awarded the Medal of Honor.* (During World War II his son, Army Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his own heroic leadership on the battlefield during the World War II D-Day Invasion of Normandy June 6, 1944.)

(Drawn principally from Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, by David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College at http://www.vw.cc.va.us/vwhansd/HIS122/Teddy/TRCanal.html and the discussion on the Rough Riders from Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders on Home of Heroes.com website at http://www.homeofheroes.com/wallofhonor/spanish_am/08_roughriders.html)

* Arthur MacArthur, Jr., was awarded the MOH for bravery in combat in the Civil War. He was finally awarded the Medal (in 1890) for that service. His son, Army General Douglas MacArthur, was awarded the MOH for bravery in World War II for conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula.

Sources:

Home of Heroes.com website (MOH citation and photos) at http://www.homeofheroes.com

Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders on Home of Heroes.com website at http://www.homeofheroes.com/wallofhonor/spanish_am/08_roughriders.html

Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal , by David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College, at http://www.vw.cc.va.us/vwhansd/HIS122/Teddy/TRCanal.html

Theodore Roosevelt: Lion in the White House, by David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College, at http://www.vw.cc.va.us/vwhansd/HIS122/Teddy/TR_Lion.html