“Don’t tell Owens this, but the orderly I alluded to was another man. I am very much obliged to you. I have spoken a great deal about the colored troops.”
On the day he wrote this letter, his 40th birthday, travelling by special campaign train, Spanish American War hero Theodore Roosevelt spoke at Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Buffalo, and places in between. Less than two weeks later, he was elected Governor of New York.