When the U.S. declared war on Spain in April, 1898, 16-year-old Jesse Langdon of Fargo wanted to volunteer, but his father told him he was too young. Impetuous, Jesse Langdon ran away from Fargo to Minneapolis to enlist in the 13th Minnesota Infantry. As Langdon later said: “I lied about my age. I said I was 19. I was big for my age, so no one questioned it.”
But the very next day, Langdon read a newspaper story about Theodore Roosevelt’s recruitment of a “cowboy regiment,” called the Rough Riders, to be “picked from the best fighting and riding ... rangers of the West ... chosen for their ability to ride, shoot, and fight.”
Langdon said he had been “born in the saddle,” and had his “first pony when [he] was five years old.” As Langdon later recalled: “I greatly preferred the Rough Riders to the infantry,” and “I thought I could qualify,” because “I didn’t think [any] horse on earth could throw me.”
Accordingly, when he reported for infantry duty, he informed an officer that he really was an underage 16 and had not gotten his father’s consent. The officer exclaimed: “You can’t enlist at all, with or without ... consent – you’re out!”
Langdon immediately hitched a ride on a freight train to Washington, D.C., with only $10 to his name. It was a cold, miserable trip. Upon arrival in D.C., Langdon panicked after hearing that Theodore Roosevelt was leaving for San Antonio, Texas, for training. Langdon scurried to the enlistment headquarters and met Roosevelt coming down the stairway. “I told him my name,” recalled Langdon, explaining how he traveled cross-country “to enlist in the Rough Riders.”
Roosevelt said: “Can you ride a horse?”
Langdon replied: “I can ride anything that’s got hair on it!”
Roosevelt gave “one loud ‘Haw!’” and said: “Go on up the stairs. Tell them I sent you.”
So Jesse Langdon became, at age 16, the youngest of 1,060 Rough Riders. Langdon went to Cuba, then survived the famous charge up San Juan Hill, but, sadly contracted deadly yellow fever, and then malaria.
Commanders sent Langdon “straight home to Fargo.” On this date, in 1898, a newspaper reported that Langdon suffered a “physical collapse” and was expected to die. Providentially, the North Dakota Rough-Rider recovered. Jesse Langdon lived to be age 94, dying in 1975, ever-renowned as the longest-living Rough-Rider.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, MSUM History Professor.
Sources:
“Jesse Langdon, the N.D. Rough Rider,” Grand Forks Herald, September 7, 1898, p. 2.
“Hero of Santiago,” Bismarck Weekly Tribune, September 2, 1989, p. 3; “Jesse Langdon,” Bismarck Weekly Tribune, September 9, 1898, p. 3.
Helen Myers, “County Man Reviews Full Life as Rough Rider, Physician, Inventor,” Poughkeepsie [NY] Journal, September 20, 1964, p. 1C.
V.C. Jones, “Before the Colors Fade” American Heritage, vol. 20, no. 5 (August 1969): p.1, AmericanHeritage.com, accessed on October 13, 2009.
“Last Rough Rider is Dead, 94-Year-Old Jesse Langdon” Poughkeepsie [NY] Journal, June 30, 1975, p. 1; “Jesse Langdon, 94, Dies,” Poughkeepsie [NY] Journal, June 30, 1975, p. 3.
“The Cowboy Regiments,” New York Times, April 28, 1898, p. 1.
