Background
Leonard Wood was born on October 9, 1860 n Winchester, New Hampshire, United States to Charles Jewett Wood and Caroline E. (Hagar) Wood.
Leonard Wood was born on October 9, 1860 n Winchester, New Hampshire, United States to Charles Jewett Wood and Caroline E. (Hagar) Wood.
After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1884, he joined the Army Medical Corps as a contract surgeon.
While advancing to the grade of captain, which he reached in 1891, he proved himself an effective troop leader in the West and won the friendship of influential generals and politicians. Stationed in Washington after 1895, he was part of the White House inner circle of presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley and made friends in 1897 with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. When the Spanish-American War began in 1898, Wood and Roosevelt raised the famous "Rough Riders. " As colonel of the regiment, Wood permanently left the Medical Corps for troop command. After participating in the Santiago de Cuba campaign, he was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers in July 1898. In October he was appointed governor of Santiago Province, the first Cuban province to fall under United States control. Physically tireless, an inspiration to his staff, at once overawing the Cubans and winning their loyalty, Wood relieved suffering and restored order. As military governor of Cuba from 1899 to 1902, he repeated these achievements on a larger scale while preparing the island for independence. Wood advanced to the permanent grade of brigadier general in 1901 and to major general in 1903. Wood served in administrative capacities in the Philippines and in the United States until 1910, when he was made Army chief of staff. He used his four-year term to assert power over the War Department bureaus, reorganize the Regular Army for greater wartime effectiveness, and launch a program of citizens' military-training summer camps. The camps constituted a step toward Wood's ultimate goal-universal military training, which to him meant schooling in patriotism and community service as well as in the use of arms. From 1914 to 1917 he was commander of the Department of the East. He spoke and wrote constantly about universal service and preparedness during America's years of neutrality early in World War I. Associating openly with Republican critics of Woodrow Wilson's administration, he went beyond the bounds of proper military conduct in advocating defense policies. In retaliation, the administration kept him from the front when the United States entered the war in 1917. As political heir of Theodore Roosevelt, Wood made a strong bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1920 but lost to Warren G. Harding. Wood was appointed governor of the Philippines by Harding in 1921 and served there until his death on August 7, 1927.
Camp Leonard Wood in Missouri, now Fort Leonard Wood, home of the United States Army Combat Engineer School, Chemical School, and Military Police School, is named in his honor. Ft. Leonard Wood is also a major TRADOC post for Basic Combat Training (BCT), home of the 10th Infantry Regiment (Basic Training).
One of the U. S. Navy's Harris-class attack transports, the USS Leonard Wood (APA-12), bears Wood's name. Numerous streets are named after Wood, including roads in Baguio City and Zamboanga City, Philippines. A Public Elementary School in Barangay Jagobiao, Mandaue City, Philippines (inside Eversley Childs Sanitarium compound) was also named after him.
For a brief period of time, Guadalupe County, New Mexico, was named after Wood. After a few years it was changed back to Guadalupe.
Medal of Honor for carrying dispatches 100 miles through hostile territory and for commanding a detachment of the 8th Infantry (whose officers had been lost) in hand-to-hand combat against the Apache. He received the rank of captain in 1891.
He was awarded an LL. D. by Harvard in 1899.
Wood is portrayed favorably in the 1997 miniseries Rough Riders by actor and retired United States Marine Dale Dye, but portrayed in a less favorable light by Mark Twain and others for his part in the First Battle of Bud Dajo in 1906.
Wood is mentioned in season 1 episode 8 of Boardwalk Empire when Nucky Thompson is told that the presidential suite is reserved for General Wood.
Wood was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the election of 1920. He was urged into running by the family and supporters of his old friend Theodore Roosevelt, who himself had been considering another campaign before his illness and death in 1919. He won the New Hampshire primary that year but lost at the convention.
He was married to Louise Adriana Condit Smith (1869–1943), of Washington, on November 18, 1890.
governor of Santiago Province, military governor of Cuba, governor of the Philippines
