The most detailed accounts of Tiffany’s gun crews come from Parker in his book The Gatlings at Santiago (1898): “On the morning of the 2d of July a handsome young soldier, in the uniform of a Rough Rider, approached the battery commander, saluted, and said, ‘Col. Roosevelt directs me to report to you with my two guns.’ Inquiry elicited the fact that the young trooper was Serg. William Tiffany, that he had command of two Colt’s automatic rapid-fire guns, with a crew consisting of Corp. Stevens and six men, and that he had 4,000 rounds of 7-millimeter ammunition. Four thousand was not a very large supply for two guns which could fire at the rate of 500 shots each per minute. Fortunately, the Gatling Gun Detachment had found time, on the 1st of July, to collect about 10,000 rounds of Mauser ammunition in the captured trenches, and a comparison of the Mauser with the 7-millimeter ammunition at once disclosed the fact that it was precisely the same ammunition which Tiffany had brought along for his guns. The problem of ammunition supply for Tiffany’s guns was solved. He now had 14,000 rounds, and his guns became a very powerful reinforcement at this point. Serg. Tiffany and his men had carried these guns from Siboney to the firing-line upon their backs. How they got the four boxes of ammunition through they themselves could hardly tell.”

Roosevelt clears up the issue by writing: “Tiffany, by great exertions, had corralled a couple of mules and was using them to transport the Colt automatic guns in the rear of the regiment.”

Of the effectiveness of the combined Gatling and Colt Model 1895 battery, TR wrote that the dynamite gun that was also attached to the unit made good work of busting up Spanish fortifications, when it actually worked. A dynamite gun round, Roosevelt related, “… struck a big building, from which there promptly swarmed both Spanish cavalry and infantry, on whom the Colt automatic guns played with good effect during the minute that elapsed before they could get other cover. These Colt automatic guns were not, on the whole, very successful. The gun detail was under the charge of Sergeant (afterward Lieutenant) Tiffany, assisted by some of our best men, like Stephens, Crowninshield, Bradley, Smith, and Herrig. The guns were mounted on tripods. They were too heavy for men to carry any distance and we could not always get mules. They would have been more effective if mounted on wheels, as the Gatlings were. Moreover, they proved more delicate than the Gatlings, and very readily got out of order. A further and serious disadvantage was that they did not use the Krag ammunition, as the Gatlings did, but the Mauser ammunition. The Spanish cartridges which we captured came in quite handily for this reason. Parker took the same fatherly interest in these two Colts that he did in the dynamite gun, and finally I put all three and their men under his immediate care, so that he had a battery of seven guns.”

Despite their shortcomings, TR did find them to be useful during the two-week siege of Santiago that followed the July 1 charge up San Juan Hill. He wrote of the Spanish sharpshooters harassing their lines with effective suppressing fire:“[O]ccasionally we would play a Gatling or a Colt all through the top of a suspicious tree, I but twice saw Spaniards brought down out of their perches from in front of our lines—on each occasion the fall of the Spaniard being hailed with loud cheers by our men.”

As far as active engagement during the siege, TR wrote: “Almost the only Rough Riders who had a chance to do much firing were the men with the Colt automatic guns … Parker had a splendid time with the Gatlings and the Colts. With these machine guns he completely silenced the battery in front of us.”

Parker had high praise for Sgt. Tiffany and his men during the siege. His book is complete with detailed maps marking the exact position of each of the two Colt Model 1895s as well as his own Gatlings. Once in the trenches he wrote: “[Tiffany] and his men now succeeded in placing his guns in the trench, and, from that time until the end of the fight, they could hardly be induced to leave them long enough to eat; they didn’t leave them to sleep—they slept in the trench by the guns.”

On July 17 Santiago finally surrendered and the work of the Rough Riders was finished in Cuba. Sadly, they remained in their entrenchments for another month before they were shipped home to Camp Wikoff on Montauk Point, the eastern edge of Long Island. During the month of inactivity, many men of the regiment came down with “Cuban Fever.” Nineteen would perish, almost as many died from malaria as from Spanish bullets. On August 25, while recovering in Boston, Lt. William Tiffany died and was deeply mourned by Roosevelt and the rest of the regiment still quarantined on Long Island.

With Tiffany’s death and the disbandment of the 1st U.S.V. Cavalry on Sept. 15th, 1898, all mentions of the two Model 1895s disappear. The discovery of serial number 161 in July of last year has sparked renewed interest in the historic use of these two machine guns. The most interesting developments have come from the clues the gun itself has left us. The inscription “L. & S. Kane” led to more research. Roosevelt noted the two guns were gifts to the regiment from: “Stevens, Kane, Tiffany, and one or two others … .” William Tiffany was made sergeant of the machine gun detachment, Joseph S. Stevens was made a corporal. This leaves Kane, who was Captain Woodbury Kane of K Troop. In the photograph of the two Colt 1895s taken at the San Antonio fair grounds in late May 1898, Tiffany and Stevens are identified in the group photo. One mustachioed gentleman on the far right is unidentified but is certainly Capt. Woodbury Kane. Kane was a friend of TR while he was at Harvard, was one of the country’s foremost polo players (as was Stevens) as well as an accomplished sailor, having crewed the America’s Cup entry to victory on more than one occasion. As the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, he was a man of privilege and wealth. He was also adored by his two doting older sisters, Louisa Langdon Kane and Sybil Kent Kane. The first machine gun ever used in military combat by the U.S. Army was a gift from two women who adored their younger brother and presented his unit with the finest in military firepower available at the time.

TR’s original birthplace site was demolished prior to World War I. After his death, The Roosevelt Memorial Ass’n (as it was then known) rebuilt and restored the brownstone as homage to the late, venerated colonel of the Rough Riders. The home was transferred as a gift to the American people by the renamed Theodore Roosevelt Ass’n, along with Sagamore Hill, to the U.S. National Park Service in 1962. The NPS records reveal that the Colt Model 1895 was in the inventory of the home upon its acquisition in 1962. When the TRA acquired the gun and from where is unknown, and the location of the other “Tiffany” gun (number 164) is still a mystery.

The National Park Service has generously loaned the Colt Model 1895, number 161, to the NFM to include it in the popular “Theodore Roosevelt: Trappings of an Icon” exhibit. The gun will be on view through September 2013. “Trappings of an Icon” will continue on display indefinitely. The NFM is located at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Va. Admission is free and the museum is open to the public every day except Christmas from 9:30 to 5:00.