Mornings on Horseback

By: David McCullough

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of John Adams

Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy - seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma - and his struggle to manhood.

His father - the first Theodore Roosevelt, "Greatheart" - is a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother - Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt - is a Southerner and celebrated beauty.

Mornings on Horseback spans 17 years, from 1869, when little "Teedie" is 10, to 1886, when he returns from the West a "real life cowboy" to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew, a grown man, whole in body and spirit.

This is a tale about family love and family loyalty... about courtship, childbirth and death, fathers and sons... about gutter politics and the tumultuous Republican Convention of 1884... about grizzly bears, grief and courage, and "blessed" mornings on horseback at Oyster Bay or beneath the limitless skies of the Badlands.

©2007 David McCullough (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

• National Book Award , Biography, 1982

"We have no better social historian." ( The New York Times)

Tedious and boring at times.

I have enjoyed David McCullough's works many times before, but this one disappointed for some reason. Unusually tedious, and at times boring. I couldn't wait to be done.

Great book, even if the chapters are out of order

The book was extremely well written. The narrator does a fantastic job throughout the book. The only complaint I have is that the chapters are significantly out of order which can be frustrating at times.

Well Done

Real inside look into our history. Quite a family. Quite a man. We need him still even more

The making of a man and a president

I thought this was a regular biography and since the subject was one of our most influential presidents, I assumed that it would especially focus on his presidency. I was wrong, but that's not the writer's fault. One look at the subtitle should have told me that. The author's forward is even clearer. His intent was to understand what made the man who became our 26th President. And, that’s what the books and does it almost perfectly. Actually, he was Theodore Jr. and his father was a very famous many in New City before Theodore, Jr. (I’ll call him Teddy, to distinguish the two) was born and until Teddy eclipsed him. Theodore Was a descendant of an early Dutch family which had become wealthy through trade. Theodore traveled south once and met his future bride, Martha Bullock, a strong-willed, beautiful southern belle (and thought by many to be the inspiration for Scarlet O’Hara) whose father was a wealthy planter and founder of the village of Roswell, Georgia, now a suburb of Atlanta. Teddy was born in 1858, just before the Civil War broke out, and the family was torn between loyalties to both. Though Theodore was an abolitionist, he held strong respect for his wife’s family and a sensitivity to her feelings. Two brothers fought for the South and ended up emigrating to England to avoid prosecution after the war. Teddy worshipped his father, who was not so typical for the Victorian Age. They were a close family and his father spent a great deal of time with his children, often playing with them on the floor of their home. Though wealthy, he hated ostentatious displays of wealth and they lived in a large, but modest home. He was a very generous and moral man, and instilled in his children a sense of honesty, justice, equality, and generosity. Teddy later said,  "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Theodore took his family on several European trips of many months in duration after the war, and Teddy especially relished the hunting trips they took as they traveled up the Nile by houseboat as an addition to one of those trips. Teddy was not in good health as a child, and a bit awkward. Though active and energetic, he had serious asthma attacks, some that came close to taking his life, throughout his childhood and even early adulthood. He was extremely interested in nature, and loved to hunt animals to preserve for study, becoming a skilled taxidermist. When they moved to a larger brownstone home in New York, his father set aside one room to be Teddy’s “museum.” He was also an avid reader, and even took books to read on his hunting expeditions. Theodore pushed him to still be active and work on strengthening his body, while not putting too much pressure on him and being almost doting on him when he was ill. Often, because doctor’s recommendations at that time were to go to the countryside for relief, his father would leave his work for weeks at a time to take Teddy south or west for recuperation. Theodore died when Teddy was 20 years old. Teddy witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln, and an archived photo of the procession shows Teddy looking down from a window of their home. While a student, he began work on a history of the US Navy in the War of 1812, which is still considered a standard study of that war (he wrote several other books as well). His research also led him to believe that no nation could become great without a strong navy (and later, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley, he built up the US Navy and undertook the construction of steam powered iron battleships (the Secretary of the Navy was in poor health and left most of the leadership to Teddy). He married Alice Lee in 1882 and they seem to have had a wonderful loving relationship. He wrote her effusive letters of his love for her. He was already a New York State Assemblyman at that time, at age 22 and was at an assembly session when a telegram came that his beloved Alice was about to give birth but that everything was going smoothly and she was doing well. Within hours, he received another telegram saying that if he wanted to see his wife alive, he must come immediately. On arrival, he found that his mother had come down with typhoid fever and would soon die and he was torn going back and forth between their two beds in the same house. His mother died at 3:00 AM and 11 hours later, his Alice died of a previously undiagnosed kidney ailment, when her baby was 2 days old. He was devastated and left the baby in the care of his sister Bamie, and devoted his life to politics. He was prominent among the speakers at the 1884 Republican Convention, but the candidate he supported did not get the nomination. He was strongly pushing for political reform and he became disillusioned with politics after that. He retreated to his new ranch in North Dakota and lived the life of a rancher for the next two years. He had planned to remain unmarried, believing that if a man loved someone, he could never marry again, but eventually married Edith Carow. The ends shortly, almost abruptly, after that with just a brief afterward mentioning his accomplishments, becoming the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, leading a regiment in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, becoming governor of New York, and then Vice-President under President McKinley, and then President, 6 months later when President McKinley was shot in 1901. He was reelected in 1904 and had a great influence on the direction of America, considered to be among the 5 greatest US Presidents (he is one of the faces on Mt. Rushmore. He was among the earliest conservationists and established multiple national parks, national forests, and protected zones as well as the park service. He took the canal zone and built the Panama Canal. He was a prolific letter-writer (at least 150,000 letters have been preserved). He won the Nobel Peace Prize. The book starts with the lives of Theodore and Mitty, then Theodore and his brothers and sisters. It truly follows its purpose, showing how a sickly boy became the young scholar, cowboy rancher, Rough Rider President, trust buster, conservationist, peacemaker, and great safari hunter, and who united east and west. Now, I just wish that McCullough would write a sequel--the rest of the story.

outstanding synopsis of Theodore Roosevelt

excellent chronology of the life of Theodore Roosevelt, with specific emphasis on his early childhood.

A good read

Learned a lot about the entire Roosevelt family, not just TR. was selected by my Bookclub and we all enjoyed it.

Such a rich and wonderful tome

It’s everything I hoped! The reader was as usual outstanding. I was sad when it ended.

The performance was awful - story just okay

I was expecting a better story considering this was on best-selling book lists. While the story had some interesting parts, I may have enjoyed the book better if it had been abridged - the parts where the book delves deep into what asthma is and the psychology behind it was BORING - made worse by the very flat performance of the narrator. There were also other parts of the book, like Harvard history - when the school color officially became crimson rather than magenta - that made seemed unneccassary. At first, I had a hard time getting into the book because the performance was so monotone and you could actually hear when the narrator was taking deep breaths from his nose. It was a great book to fall asleep to. Also, the book changed my opinion about Theodore Roosvelt - I don't think I like him much after listening to this book.

I couldn't get past chapter 7.

The narration is so slow and dull I could never connect with the book. I really like the Authors other books in the genre, so this has ledt me feeling very disappointed.

How he became the man we read about

David McCollough captures, in detail, how the young Teddy grew through exceptionally difficult circumstances into a lively, engaging and always entertaining political figure. Much of the author's detail gives the reader insights into Teddy's actions and the tough demeanor he displayed in his later years. Exceptional read - highly recommended!