Theodore Roosevelt was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy when the battleship U.S.S Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor.  After the United States declared war on Spain in April 1898, initiating the Spanish American War, Roosevelt resigned his position and joined the military.  Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt recruited volunteers to serve in the newly organized 1^st United States Volunteer Calvary, which soon earned the nickname, “Rough Riders”.  In June 1898, Roosevelt and the Rough Riders camped in Tampa before they disembarked to Cuba.  Famed for their charge up Cuba’s San Juan Hill, the Rough Riders were brave men who were determined to achieve an independent Cuba, a goal that Tampa’s Cuban immigrants had long sought.