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Fact check: Theodore Roosevelt's eyesight was permanently damaged by military aide during boxing match

Sudiksha Kochi   | Paste BN

The claim: Theodore Roosevelt's eyesight was permanently damaged by his military aide during a boxing match

Theodore Roosevelt, who served as president of the United States from 1901 to 1909, used vigorous physical activity as a way to deal with his health problems, according to the National Park Service.

One of the activities he engaged in throughout his life was boxing.

A Facebook user shared a post on Nov. 2 of an illustration depicting Roosevelt in a boxing arena.

"Teddy Roosevelt regularly staged boxing matches in the White House, taking on anyone he could - including professional boxers," reads the text underneath the image. "He only stopped boxing when his eyesight was permanently damaged by a punch from his military aide, Col. Daniel T. Moore."

The post generated at least 3,000 shares in less than a week.

The claim is true.

Roosevelt regularly boxed at the White House, according to spokespeople from the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson University. Roosevelt was injured in one of these matches by Moore, his military aide, causing him to lose sight in one of his eyes.

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Paste BN reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment.

Roosevelt was partially blinded in one eye

Roosevelt occasionally challenged Moore, who was a cousin of Roosevelt's wife, to boxing matches, according to Karen Sieber, a historian at the Theodore Roosevelt Center.

In one match, Moore hit him hard, according to Sieber, and the blow caused Roosevelt to become partially blinded in one eye.

The match took place around 1905, according to Erik Johnson, digital library coordinator and archivist at the Theodore Roosevelt Center, and it wasn't until close to a decade later that Moore learned what he had done.

“It never got around to me till I saw in the papers the other day that he had said that he lost the sight of his eye while boxing with a captain of artillery who was his aide," Moore said, according to his obituary in The New York Times. "He didn’t name anybody then, but I knew that he must have meant me, for I happen to have been the only boxing aide he had who was in the artillery.”

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Contrary to the claim in the Facebook post, Roosevelt apparently did not stop boxing after the blow.

A letter Roosevelt wrote to Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood in 1909 mentions that he has still been doing “a little boxing,” so while his injury seems to have decreased his matches, Roosevelt persisted in boxing for some time, according to Johnson. 

Sieber also said that Roosevelt continued to box, but far less frequently as he was suffering from other ailments, including inflammatory rheumatism, a muscle tear in his thigh and old age.

Our rating: True

Based on our research, we rate TRUE the claim that Theodore Roosevelt's eyesight was permanently damaged by his military aide during a boxing match. Spokespeople from the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson University told Paste BN that Roosevelt was partially blinded in one eye while boxing with the aide.

Our fact-check sources: 

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