Rough Riders

A new exhibit documents the long friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and John Avery McIlhenny

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In February of 1898, the U.S.S. Maine was exploded by a submerged mine in Havana harbor and sank, killing 266 men. Thus was the Spanish-American War begun, and there were calls throughout the country for volunteers to fight against the Spanish occupancy of Cuba. One of the gentlemen that heeded that call was John Avery McIlhenny, son of the founder of the iconic TABASCO pepper sauce, Edmund McIlhenny.

John Avery, known by many as J.A., was raised on the family homestead on Avery Island, a three-mile salt dome on the edge of Iberia Parish’s Vermilion Bay. When the war broke out, he was eager to form his own group of volunteer riflemen from the Iberia Parish area to join the fight, said author and historian Dr. Shane K. Bernard. Bernard, who has written several books, including TABASCO: An Illustrated History, is the archivist for the TABASCO company.

“But it never happened. J.A. just couldn’t find enough volunteers,” Bernard said. So McIlhenny, in his early 30s at the time, rode to Texas in hopes of joining the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, popularly known as the Rough Riders. It is in that service that he met the future twenty-sixth president of the United States, larger than life outdoorsman, author, adventurer, and trailblazing reformer Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, J.A. claimed to have saved Roosevelt’s life. The story of this intimate relationship is presented in the company’s museum, expanded earlier this year to not only share the TABASCO story but also the founding family’s.

J.A.’s son, Jack, in an interview Bernard documented in the mid-1990s, related J.A.’s account of qualifying for the regiment. The McIlhenny family evidently understood J.A.’s strong desire to join the Rough Riders, which consisted of farmers, college students, cattlemen, Civil War veterans, and whomever else was able and willing to combat the Spanish occupancy in Cuba. “One of the women in the McIlhenny family wrote a letter of introduction to Roosevelt, telling him that J.A. wanted to join the Rough Riders,” Bernard said.

Though Roosevelt was second in command, the regiment became known as “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders,” donning iconic yellow-cuffed tan uniforms, wide-brimmed hats, and cavalry scarves. Artifacts now on display at the museum include J.A.’s Rough Rider uniform worn on the Cuban shores 119 years ago.

In his written account of the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt commended McIlhenny for his bravery. “Roosevelt promoted McIIhenny twice on the battlefield for gallantry action, and one of the things Jack told me was that J.A. saved Roosevelt’s life,” Bernard said. “He claimed that his father saw a Spanish sniper getting ready to shoot Roosevelt. McIlhenny pulled him down, and the bullet went through Roosevelt’s hat but did not hit Roosevelt himself. And basically Roosevelt said, ‘Thank you, I owe you my life; but, look, can we not mention this to anyone?’”

Cuba’s tropical climate exposed J.A., along with several other members of the cavalry, to malaria and measles. His health continued to decline in the following years, leaving him weak and gaunt.

After the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt’s ambitions led him to the White House. McIlhenny went on to be elected Louisiana state representative and then a state senator before accepting Roosevelt’s offer to head the U.S. Civil Service Commission. All the while, both families corresponded regularly, maintaining close relationships outside of civil service. Recorded and stored in the TABASCO Co. archives are stacks of letters written to and from J.A. and Roosevelt, their wives, and their children. They include thank you cards for gifts of pecans, invitations to the Roosevelts’ estate in Oyster Bay, and other fond communications.

[Read: McIlhenny's World-Record Alligator? The claim of a known spinner-of-yarns remains surprisingly unchallenged.]

Like many of his adventures as a hunter and outdoorsman, President Roosevelt closely detailed his excursions in the South’s wilderness. A bear-hunting trip in the northern portion of Louisiana, taken with McIlhenny in 1907, was Roosevelt’s second attempt to kill a black bear following the iconic Teddy Bear trip in 1902. The 1902 trip is recounted by the National Park Service: “On a bear hunting trip in Mississippi, Roosevelt—well-known for his interest in hunting and the outdoors—was not having any luck. Determined to find a suitable quarry for the President, his guide tracked, cornered, and tied a black bear to a tree for Roosevelt to shoot. The President considered this unsportsmanlike and refused to shoot the bear.”

Though another member of the party eventually killed the bear, Roosevelt’s refusal was considered an act of compassion. Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman of the Washington Post depicted the account on November 16, 1902. A candy shop owner in Brooklyn created a small, stuffed bear and called it “Teddy’s Bear.” The toy was then mass-produced throughout the country.

In his 1908 published account In The Louisiana Canebrakes, Roosevelt writes, “Giant cypress grew at the edge of the water, the singular cypress knees rising in every direction round about, while at the bottoms of the trunks themselves were often cavernous hollows opening beneath the surface of the water, some of them serving as dens for alligators. There was a waxing moon, so that the nights were as beautiful as the days.”

Canebrakes also includes an account of McIlhenny, whose wild nature matched Roosevelt’s, promptly leaving a formal dinner party at his home on Avery Island to hunt a bear that had been raiding his cornfield: “McIlhenny shot her; tried in vain to catch the cub; and rejoined the party on the veranda, having been absent but one hour.”

Media also took notice of the Roosevelts’ connection to Louisiana. A darling of the press, Roosevelt’s oldest daughter, Alice, a socialite known as the “Duchess of Dupont Circle,” visited Avery Island while in her teens before traveling to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. “She came here to the island by rail, and supposedly, they had a party for her in the salt mine,” Bernard said. “They dug tables and chairs out of salt, and they made a statue of Lot’s wife out of salt.”

[Read: 36 Hours in New Iberia.]

Alice Roosevelt, who was known for being a wild-child, was accompanied and chaperoned in New Orleans by the McIlhennys. “Jack told me that when his father and Alice were walking through a courtyard in New Orleans, she pushed him backwards into a fountain,” Bernard said. “Mrs. McIlhenny, John’s mother, started yelling at Alice Roosevelt. John leaped out of the fountain and kind of shook his mother and said ‘Be quiet! That’s the President’s daughter!’”

J.A. also maintained a friendship with future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. They shared a love for yachting while both serving in Washington D.C., Bernard said.

McIlhenny died twenty-three years after Roosevelt. But the evidence of their friendship has survived the decades since. In a letter to McIlhenny in 1903, Roosevelt wrote, “I am half amused and half irritated that you should have seemed it possible I would not give the letters to your mother and brother—or do anything else you asked for you and yours. But the whole affair had slipped my mind and I never thought of your silence at all. I wish you were here at Oyster Bay now. Faithfully yours, Theodore Roosevelt.” 

Visiting hours and information about TABASCO Co.’s expanded museum can be found at tabasco.com.