Teddy Roosevelt Honored With Medal

Tuesday, January 16th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A former president best known for his charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War and a former slave whose courage during the Civil War was ignored by the Army for almost a century got posthumous Medals of Honor from President Clinton.

``May we continue to live up to the ideals for which both Andrew Jackson Smith and Theodore Roosevelt risked their lives,'' Clinton said Tuesday as he presented the medals to the Smith and Roosevelt families in a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Before a painting of Theodore Roosevelt, in battle gear and on horseback, Clinton described in glowing terms the former president who, as a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War, led his men up a Cuban hill and ``changed the course of the battle and the Spanish-American War,'' Clinton said.

``TR was a larger-than-life figure, who gave our nation a larger-than-life vision of our place in the world,'' Clinton said. ``Part of that vision was formed on San Juan Hill.''

Roosevelt openly campaigned for the Medal of Honor, America's highest military decoration, for his performance under fire on July 1, 1898. The action became known as the battle of San Juan Hill.

Roosevelt led his regiment of volunteers, the Rough Riders, into action alongside Army regulars up Kettle Hill, one of two hills comprising San Juan Heights. The Rough Riders then advanced up San Juan Hill with as few as four men but arrived after regulars had taken it.

The Roosevelt family will donate the award back to the White House, Roosevelt's 58-year-old great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt, said in accepting the award. It will be displayed in the Roosevelt Room along with Theodore Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize, which he was awarded in 1906 for his role in settling the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 with a treaty signed Sept. 5, 1905, in Portsmouth, N.H.

``We think it will serve as a wonderful icon for future presidents, when they take foreign dignitaries or other people into the Roosevelt Room for private luncheons, to be able to turn and point to the mantelpiece and say, `This is what we as a country stand for: the Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize.' Peace and honor,'' Tweed Roosevelt said.

Alongside the Roosevelt family was the family of Cpl. Andrew Jackson Smith of the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, a former slave who joined the Union Army during the Civil War. The 55th Massachusetts was the sister regiment to the 54th Massachusetts, memorialized in the 1989 movie ``Glory.''

During the Battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina, Smith saved his unit's colors after the flag-bearer was killed in a bloody charge. Despite heavy gunfire, Smith held the flag high throughout the battle and kept the 55th Massachusetts from losing its colors to the Confederates.

``In one five-minute span, the 55th alone is said to have lost over 100 men, but they never lost their colors because Corporal Smith carried them through the battle, exposing himself as the lead target,'' Clinton said.

Although Smith was first nominated in 1916, he was rejected for the Medal of Honor even though 80 other soldiers who saved their unit's colors were awarded the honor after the Civil War. One was father of world War II hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

``Sometimes it takes this country a while, but we nearly always get it right in the end,'' Clinton told the Smith family. ``I am proud that we finally got the facts and that for you and your brave forebear, we are finally making things right.''

Smith's family thanked Clinton for finally coming through for their ancestor.

His 93-year-old daughter, Caruth Smith Washington, came to the White House to see her father's dream of winning the Medal of Honor finally come true. ``I am very proud to be his daughter,'' she told reporters after the ceremony.

``Only in America can the sons of a slave and the daughters of a slave receive the same honor at the time that a president's sons and daughters receive theirs,'' added Andrew Bowman, Smith's 65-year-old grandson. ``We stood on that same stage and (received) the same medal. It's just amazing.''

President Clinton has awarded 37 Medals of Honor during his administration. Roosevelt's is the first one given to a U.S. president.

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On the Net: Smith biography: http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/ajsmith.htm

Roosevelt biography: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/tr26.html

Medal of Honor winners: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/moh1.htm