Description

Rough Riders with mascots--the dog Cuba and the mountain lion Josephine, 1898.

While discussing the explosion and sinking of the USS Maine, Mayor "Buckey" O’Neill, Alexander Brodie, and James McClintock hatched an idea to raise up a volunteer cavalry from the Arizona territory to fight in Cuba. O'Neill wanted to raise a regiment of hardcore frontiersmen who were able to survive under harsh, dangerous and deadly conditions as such men would make excellent soldiers. O'Neill came to call them "The Rough Riders." The men they recruited became the origin and core of the First US Volunteer Cavalry that won great fame and glory under Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War.

The Rough Riders took several animal mascots to Cuba, but it was the Arizona regiment’s first mascot that was by far the most popular. “The Arizona Volunteers’ mascot—the mountain lion [named Josephine]—is a great drawing card, and the boys down in San Antonio are thinking of charging a nickel a head to see [her] to swell the regimental fund,” The Journal-Miner reported. “[She] is fastened to a cage by a long chain and is given perfect freedom, so far as the chain will allow. Adults and children crowded about the animal all day long. Several of the visitors tried to stroke the animal's head, but Josephine was in a vicious mood and repelled their advances with a show of teeth which was calculated to make a stout-hearted person feel uneasy."