President Theodore Roosevelt's Many Wounds

1903

Has Received an Uncommon Number During His Strenuous Life

Such a collection of scars as that borne by President Roosevelt was never owned by an American chief executive before. He is the "most wounded" president of the United States. Fifteen injuries of a more or loss serious nature have been received by him since he reached manhood.

During his football days he received many bruises, and during his ranching career in the West he got three ribs broken. Later, in the Bad Lands, he had a bone broken in his shoulder from a fall from a vicious horse.

He was attacked by a grizzly bear while hunting in Idaho in 1889 and escaped by a narrow margin. Two years before that he was chased by an infuriated steer in the Big Horn country of Wyoming. He grabbed the steer by the horns, vaulted to its back and rode it for two miles.

On more recent hunting trips in Colorado he has had encounters with mountain lions in which his quickness of hand frequently saved his life.

He was slightly wounded in the hand during the Cuban campaign, and he barely escaped death in the trolley accident at Pittsfield. His leg was so injured that an operation for abscess had to be performed later.

President Roosevelt's last two injuries have been received at the hands of his intimate friend, Gen. Leonard Wood, in single stick and rapier play, which they used as exercise almost daily. A few weeks ago Gen. Wood thrust his rapier through the president's mask, bruising him severely on the forehead and narrowly missing his left eye. A week later the two friends were in a vigorous bout with the single sticks in an improvised gymnasium near the top of the white house. The play became rather heated, and in the rapid play the president caught a heavy cut on the wrist. He had to shake hands with his left hand at the recent white house reception. — Boston Post.