The regiment was also called "Wood's Weary Walkers" in honor of its first commander, Colonel Leonard Wood. This nickname served to acknowledge that despite being a cavalry unit they ended up fighting on foot as infantry. Wood's second in command was former assistant secretary of the United States Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, a man who had pushed for American involvement in Cuban independence. When Colonel Wood became commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, the Rough Riders then became "Roosevelt's Rough Riders." The Rough Riders is Roosevelt's account of his adventures in the Spanish-American War, and it was a bestseller immediately when it was published in 1899. The Rough Riders were a uniquely American crew of cowboys, scholars, land speculators, American Indians, and African Americans, and this volume chronicles their triumphs and defeats with riveting and engrossing detail.