(Photo of Teddy Roosevelt at Camp Wikoff used with permission of Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives)
Theodore Roosevelt makes a farewell address to soldiers at Camp Wikoff, 1898. Camp Wikoff, located at Montauk Point, Long Island, New York, was established in August 1898 as a Federal demobilization and quarantine camp for troops returning from Cuba at the close of the Spanish-American War. More than 20,000 soldiers were housed at Camp Wikoff. The camp’s medical staff included three hundred nurses, among them 110 Daughters of Charity. The most prominent of the returning quarantined soldiers were Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.