Chapter IX: The Argonne Offensive (2)

Colonel William J. Donovan; Captains, Oscar L. Buck, Edmond J. Connelly, John J. Clifford, John F. Rowley; First Lieutenants, James Collier, Paul D. Surber, Roderick J. Hutchinson; Second Lieutenants, Joseph P. Katsch, Charles D. Huesler, Clarence Johnson, Samuel S. Swift, Lester M. Greff, Henry W. Davis (Deceased), Arthur N. Hallquist, John J. Williams.

Company A, Sergeants Purtell, Armstrong, Sweeney; Corporals Gladd, Roberts, Newton, Thynne, Rice, Wylie.

Company B, Sergeants Thornton, Mulholland, Meniccoci, Graham, Gilbert, Whalen, Coyne; Corporals Quigley, Brady, Geraghty, Van deWerken, Longo, Lofare, Hayes, Healey, Lehman, Neary.

Company C, Sergeants James Burns, Hillig, Hennessey, Knight, McNiff; Corporals, James Kelly, Hannigan, Lynott, Minogue, Munz, O’Kelly, Osberg, Quinn, Stratico, Blythe, Boyle.

Company D, Sergeants Crotty, O’Malley, Moran, Sheahan, McDonough, Tracey, Morton; Corporals Dale, Plant, Dalton Smith, Murray, O’Dowd, Lynch, O’Brien, DeVoe, Terry O’Connor, Bambrick, McAuliffe, Edward B. Smith, Reilly, Harkins, Tuers, Brady, Thompson, O’Connell.

Company E, Corporals Corbett, Maloney, Geary.

Company F, Corporal Patrick Frawley.

Company G, Sergeants McNamara, William Farrell, James Murray; Corporals, Framan, Allen, Christy.

Company H, Sergeant Walker; Corporals, McGorry, Ryan, McGlynn, Doran.

Company I, Sergeants Shanahan, Lyons, Dynan, Mullin, Joseph O’Brien; Corporals, Cousens, Dexter, Gaul, Horgan, Kennedy, Smiser, Welsh, Zarella, Beyer, Lenihan, New, Regan, Conway, Hettrick, Neary.

Company K, Sergeants Timothy Sullivan, Gleason, Hellrigel; Corporals Van Yorx, McKessy, Clinton, Ryan, Ostermeyer, Casey, Gallagher, LeGall, McMahon, Caraher, Wakely, Hoey.

Company L, Sergeants, Southworth, Kiernan, Wittlinger, Fitzpatrick, Mullins, Blood; Corporals Kennedy, Martin, O’Brien, Oakes, McCallum, George McCue, Murphy, John J. Murphy, Hearn.

Company M, Sergeants Major, Clark, May; Corporals Igo, Feely, Begley, Shear, Scott, Donovan, McGovern, Cook, Bailey, Kiernan, Berger, Harry Murray, Knowles.

Headquarters Co., Corporals Dick, Brochon, Albrecht.

Machine Gun Co., Sergeants Stevens, Spillane, Gillespie, Doherty; Corporals Erard, Cohen.

ESPERANCE FARM

_October_ 28th, 1918

Our rear Headquarters are in two buildings on the main road that
parallels the river Aire. In one of them is the Supply Company
and the band. Solicitude for the welfare of bandsmen is the sole
tribute that the army pays to art. In a neighboring building is an
Ambulance Company and our Company Clerks, who have been ordered to
be left in the rear because records are never properly made out
if the Company Clerk becomes a casualty. I often make use of a
returning ambulance to come back to Captain Kinney’s Hotel for a
decent sleep and a good breakfast. Across the road in the field a
number of the men have made little dugouts for themselves, as the
buildings are overcrowded.

Shell fire does not come back this far except occasionally, but the
nights are often made hideous by enemy bombing planes. Aeroplanes
carrying machine guns are futile things, but a plane at night
dropping bombs is absolutely the most demoralizing thing in war. It
is a matter of psychology. The man in front discharging his rifle
has the hunter’s exhilaration. Even shells can be dodged if not
too numerous, and after a man has dropped on his face or jumped
into a doorway and has escaped, there is the satisfaction that a
hare must have when it eludes the dogs and pants contentedly in its
hole. But when one lies at night and hears the deep buzz of a plane
overhead, and most especially when the buzz ceases and he knows
that the plane is gliding and making ready to drop something, the
one feeling that comes is that if that fellow overhead pulls the
lever at the right spot, a very very wrong spot, it means sudden
and absolute destruction. There is no way of getting away from it.
One simply lies and cowers.

Last night we heard the crunching roar six times repeated in the
field just across the road. Flannery and I got up and pulled on
our shoes to go over and see what happened. Mules had been hit and
two of our men slightly wounded. The bombs made holes in the soft
earth, ten feet deep and nearly twelve in diameter, and one of them
had fallen at the feet of two of our lads and had not exploded.
I was particularly anxious about a lot of nice youngsters whom I
had picked out after St. Mihiel for the Band—John Kyle, Robert
Emmett Mitchell, Howard Casey, Pat Campion, Will Maroney, Will
King, George Forms, John Killoran, Denis Glynn, Will Howard,—all
lads that had volunteered before they were eighteen. I found them
unharmed and rather enjoying the show.

Lieutenant Bernard Byrne, who is not long with us and whose
experience in warfare has not been of great duration, was ordered
from the Supply Company a couple of days ago to duty with Company
G. His first night in line he took out a patrol which he handled
admirably and came back with two prisoners. A very good start
indeed.

Everybody has slept in his clothes for weeks. It would not be true
to say that we never take them off, because that is part of the
morning, though not of the evening ritual. Every morning officers
and men, refined or roughneck, strip to the waist for the process
of “Reading his shirt.” Not to put too fine a touch to it, we are
all crawling with lice. Holmes has a boy who is at the interesting
age of four, and his wife writes to him the usual domestic stories
about his bright ways and sayings. “You ask her if that kid can
read his shirt. Tell her I said that his old man can do it.” Mrs.
Holmes sent word back to Father Duffy that while the youthful
prodigy had not all the accomplishments of a soldier he could hike
with any of us. I did not get the message for weeks afterwards, as
my brother Chaplain was very much run down and Major Lawrence and
I shipped him off, despite his protests, to the hospital. I do not
need to worry about Father Hanley. As long as Ambrose Sutcliff’s
Goulash Wagon can supply him with an occasional meal, he will
keep going any place I put him—though that is not the right way
to phrase it, for I always have to keep him pulled back from the
places where he thinks he ought to be. I think I will take both my
Chaplains home with me to the Bronx as curates. A Catholic church
with a Methodist annex would be a novelty. Back in the peaceful
days, a Jew friend of mine whom I was showing over my combination
church and school said to me, with the quick business sense of his
race, “You use this building for Church on Sunday and for school
five days in the week. The only day it’s idle is Saturday. What you
ought to do is to hire a good smart young Rabbi and run a synagogue
on the Sabbath. I’ll bet you’ll make money at it.”

The two weeks that elapsed between October 16th and November 1st
were the dreariest, draggiest days we spent in the war. The men
lay out on the bare hillsides in little pits they had dug for
themselves, the bottoms of which were turned into mud by frequent
rains. They had one blanket apiece, and were without overcoats,
underwear or socks, in the unpleasant climate of a French Autumn.
They were dirty, lousy, thirsty, often hungry; and nearly every
last man was sick.

Captain Bootz, an old-time regular army man and therefore not
sympathetic with imaginary ills, made the following report on
Anderson’s battalion as early as October 17th. “Checked up strength
of battalion shows 405 men for active combat, including liaison
detail. Of this number about 35% are suffering various illnesses,
especially rheumatism, colds and fevers. The Company commanders
state that these men are not receiving medical treatment, which
should be given to them without fail or conditions will be worse in
the next day or so. Some men are doubled up and should really be in
the hospital. I cannot allow these men to leave, as it would set
a precedent for many others to follow, and this would deplete our
fighting strength so much more. First aid men attached to companies
have no medical supplies other than bandages. A lack of proper
clothing, such as overcoats, heavy underwear and socks, brings on a
great many of these maladies. The majority of the men have summer
underwear, if any, and no overcoat and only one blanket; and this
is entirely inadequate to keep a soldier in fit physical condition
for field service in the climate that is found this time of year in
France. I deem it my duty that this be brought to the attention of
higher authorities so that they may be rightly informed as to the
actual conditions we are living in, and that means be found to have
the defect remedied immediately.”

As the days went on, conditions got no better. Hundreds and
hundreds of men had to be evacuated as too weak to be of any
military value; and nothing but the need of man-power kept our
doctors from sending half the regiment to the hospital. The only
relief from monotony was an occasional night patrol, or the
prospects which were held out to us of a fresh order to attack. In
spite of the bloody nose we had already received, our men wished
for the order to try again. Patrols and observation posts reported
a lessening of the enemy’s strength, and our fellows felt certain
that if the tanks would do their share they could get through.
They had met their first repulse. If they had been in the war as
long as the British or French, they would have learned to take it
philosophically as part of the give and take of the game. But it
was their first one, and they were burning with the desire to get
back at the enemy.

On the 21st our brigade relieved the 84th, our 2nd Battalion taking
over the front line on the north edge of the Cote de Chatillon.
The next day orders were out for a new attack in which the 165th
were to work around the eastern end of Landres et Saint George.
Everybody was on the _qui vive_ for a new battle but the thing
dragged from day to day until the 26th, when word came that we
were to be taken out of the line and that the Second Division was
to make the attack. Our men were sorely disappointed and grieved
about it, but the decision was a proper one. With the artillery
support that has been gathering in our rear I have no doubt that
our fellows could have broken through, but we have become too weak
in man power to exploit an initial victory in a way that should
be done to make the most of it. Three weeks in line under such
conditions do not fit men for the hardships of a sustained advance.
During this period we lost killed, in Company H, William Murray
and P. Nicholson; and in Company M, Davidson and Patrick Ames, a
soldier who never knew fear.

_October_ 28th, 1918.

I went in to see General Menoher about my concerns as Division
Chaplain. After my business was done he said that he had received
orders to send me back to the States to make a speaking tour for
the Welfare Funds. He kept talking about these orders long enough
to get me worried, although as I watched his face closely I thought
I could detect a humorous and reassuring twinkle in his pleasant
eyes. Finally, after having been kept on the griddle for five
minutes, I ventured the question, “May I ask, General, what reply
you made to these orders?” Then he laughed in his genial way. “I
told them that you had better work to do here than there and that I
was not going to let you go.” I certainly do like that man.

Our land battles during these days are being conducted mainly at
night as fights between patrols, the war in the day time being
mainly in the air. On October 16th a German plane which had been
separated from its escadrille came wabbling over the heads of
Major Lawrence’s group and landed in a field alongside them, the
occupants being made prisoners. Two days later I had the good luck
to witness from the same spot a unique spectacle. There had been
an air fight in which ours got the better of it. A German plane
was evidently in a bad way. As we watched it we saw a dark object
drop from it, and while we held our breath in sympathetic terror
for a human being dropping to destruction, a parachute opened
above him—the first instance of the kind we have seen in this war.
Captain Bootz, who was under him at the time, said that he managed
it by climbing out on the tail of his plane and dropping off it
from the rear. The great difficulty about using a parachute for
aviators has been that the on-moving plane hits the ropes before
they can drop clear. Most of the air fights have been the result of
the determination of the Germans to get our balloons. They brought
down four of them one afternoon, much to our disgust.

There is a stock story about the rookie who is persuaded by his
fellows that his tin hat is guaranteed by the government to turn
the direct hit of a German 77. When Colonel Dravo and the rest of
us start to tell how an inch of planking turned a German 77, we
shall be greeted with smiles of incredulity, but the thing actually
happened. Dravo has a pleasant little Chalet out on the hill 263,
beautifully situated in the forest and affording an excellent
place of repose for weary American officers if the Germans who
were kind enough to build it would only leave their work alone.
But the hill is shelled by day and shelled and bombed by night,
in a picky sort of a way. A small portion of the shack is boarded
off for a kitchen and in it sleep, or rather slept, for they don’t
like the place any more, the force of our Headquarters mess:
Sergeant Denis Donovan, Jimmy Dayton, Tex Blake, McWalter, and John
McLaughlin in superimposed bunks, so that the lads above were only
a couple of feet below the roof. A shell hit just above them, the
explosion ruining the roof and pitching them all to the floor; but
every particle of iron in it spread itself into the air outside
of the building. Luckily for them it must have been one of those
long-nosed devils that explode on contact and cause much greater
destruction than those that plow out the ordinary shell hole.
The first time I saw the roads barely scratched where they hit I
thought the German powder was becoming inferior. I know better now.

HALLOWE’EN

We are out of the line tonight with the exception of Reilley’s 3rd
Battalion, which is to lie out there in their shelter pits under
our barrage and whatever the Germans may send back in reply until
the 2nd Division goes through them tomorrow. Twelve months ago we
had scarcely left our native shores, a wonderful year in the lives
of all of us, and the last one for many a poor fellow now sleeping
in the soil of France. A lot of the officers are crowded together
in Kinney’s quarters at the Esperance Farm. The room is hot and
close, as shelter-halves and blankets screen every nook through
which light might pass to give information of human habitation to a
passing bomber. Everybody feels tired, dirty and discouraged.

I said to them, “You are the glummest bunch of Irish that I ever
saw on a Hallowe’en. Johnnie Fechheimer, you are the best Harp in
this bunch; start them singing. Frank Smith, warm us up with some
coffee, since there’s nothing better to be had.” So Pete Savarese
soon had the coffee boiling and the two Ganymedes, Bob Dillon and
Charlie Lowe, ministered to our needs. Pretty soon they were all
singing—Major Anderson, Kinney, Mangan, Fechheimer, McDermott,
Flynn, McCarthy, O’Donohue, Joe McNamara, Smith, John Schwinn,
even Flannery, Scanlon, and myself. Joe McNamara, who is as good a
youth as they make them, and who has done great service during the
past three weeks with his signal men, sang a song that was just on
the verge of being naughty, with his handsome blue eyes twinkling
provokingly at me. Dan Flynn knows all the old songs that our
mothers used to sing, “Ben Bolt,” “You’ll Remember Me,” and all
that sort of thing. Fechheimer and McNamara supplied the modern
element in the concert. But no matter what it was, everybody joined
in, including the men in the loft upstairs and in the shelter tents
outside, especially when it came to songs in praise of Good Little
Old New York; and truck drivers and ambulance men and passing
officers along the road got first-hand information that the New
York Irish 69th had come through their three long weeks of fighting
and hardship with their tails still erect.

We had no doubt of the success of the 2nd Division. Artillery was
lined up hub to hub on all the roads around Exermont, Fleville and
Sommerance and the machine guns of both divisions were to give them
a sustained preparatory barrage. I may add incidentally that the
thorough preparations for their attack were the best justification
for our failure to reach the last objective. We heard the artillery
hammering away through the early morning and it was soon evident
that the sturdy infantry and marines of the 2nd Division had
carried the battle line well towards the north.

I started up with Sergeant Fitzsimmons on my own sad quest of
looking for our dead in the enemy wires. Just ahead of us as we
passed through Sommerance a German shell lit on the road right in
a party of five German prisoners and four American soldiers. The
nine men lay scattered in all directions. We ran up and I found one
of ours with both legs blown completely off trying to pull himself
up with the aid of a packing case. In spite of his wounds he gave
not the slightest evidence of mental shock. While Fitzsimmons ran
for an ambulance, he told me his name was Conover, and that he
was a Catholic, and said the prayers while I gave him absolution.
He had no idea his legs were gone until a soldier lifted him on a
stretcher, when I could see in his eyes that he was aware that his
body was lifting light. He started to look but I placed my hand on
his chest and kept him from seeing. Three men were dead already and
it did not seem to me as if any one of them could live. One of the
Germans was an officer who cursed his fate that brought him to this
death by the fire of his own guns after lasting through four years
of war.

When we reached our old battleground I found that one man had
gotten there before me on the same errand as myself. It was Father
Davitt of Lenox, Mass., who had been detached from the 32nd
Division as Corps Chaplain.

On both sides of the Sommerance road as it neared the wire we
saw the bodies scattered, still well preserved and recognizable
by reason of the cool weather. Right around the wire and in the
sunken road that ran into it the Germans had buried them. It was a
surprise to find that even now the wire was absolutely unbroken in
any place. An occasional shell had landed in it, as was evidenced
by the holes made, but the whole fabric was so well bound together
that it simply jumped up and then dropped back into place again.
The 2nd Division had evidently been wise enough to carry their
attack around it as I found just one of their dead and he was
lying in the _chicane_ or passage made by the highway as it passed
through it.

I arranged with Father Davitt to have his detachment of Pioneers
look after the sepulchre of our dead in case the Regiment got
orders to move on, and returned to make my report to Colonel Dravo.

The 3rd Battalion got back to our place in the rear during the
morning, having suffered some losses from shell fire, amongst them
being Jimmy Fay, who had part of his foot blown off. Orders to take
up the advance were received on November 2nd, our 3rd Battalion
being out of the line less than 24 hours.

The first day’s route laid down for us showed us that we were going
to take over in the region to the west of that in which we had been
fighting. In the plans for the attack of the 2nd Division they had
moved rapidly towards the NNE., leaving the Germans on their left
to wake up and find themselves in a salient between our troops and
the northern extension of the Argonne Forest. The 78th Division was
engaged in expediting the evacuation of these Germans. Two days’
march, neither of them very long, brought us to Brieulles, just
north of which we were to relieve the 78th. The only difficulty
about the march was for the wagons. Every outfit had lost half of
its animals, and those that were left were in miserable condition.
The artillery felt this hardest, but it made trouble for the
infantry, too, in getting up the supplies and the kitchens. The
worn down roads were frightfully crowded with ambulances, trucks,
kitchens, guns, caissons, ration and combat wagons, headquarters
automobiles; and the M. Ps. were kept swearing till their voices
gave out trying to keep traffic conditions tolerable. When we got
to Brieulles we found that the Germans were blowing up bridges and
roads in their retreat. Colonel Dravo, following tradition and his
own generous instincts of being nice to an old fellow like me, had
sent me on with his car; and Brown was carrying me rapidly out of
Brieulles towards the front when Major Doyle, our Brigade Adjutant,
stopped me and said that while it didn’t matter much what became
of me, cars were getting scarce and he had decided objections to
presenting what was once a perfectly good car to the Germans. I
deduced from this that the enemy were in the next town and that I
had better stay where I was. The regiment was stopped at Authé, to
which place I returned.

The villages which the Germans had left had a number of civilians,
and in accordance with the order of the German Commander, the
Mayors put a white flag on the church steeple to warn us against
shelling them. I have never seen a happier lot of old people in my
life than the French civilians whom we were instrumental in saving
after four years of captivity. At Authé our P. C. was in what
had once been a village inn. The proprietress was old and little
and lively and pious. She gave a warm reception to M. l’Aumonier
when she heard that I belonged to the Old Church, and immediately
proceeded to make plans for a High Mass next Sunday in spite of
my telling her that we would not probably be there more than one
night. “I have been doing most of the preaching to the people
around here the last four years,” she said. “M. le Curé is old and
quiet and he hasn’t much to say; but me, I talk, talk, talk all the
time. I tell these people that God sent the German Devils amongst
them because of their sins. I preach so much that they have given
me a nickname. Do you know what they call me? They call me Madame
Morale. And I preach to the Germans, too. I tell them they will
all be in Hell if they do not mend their ways.” “What do they say
to you?” “Most times they laugh and call me Grossmutter, but some
of them swear and get mad. But I preach at them just the same. My
sister she does not preach, she just prays.”

I went up to see the sister. They must have been both around
eighty; and she sat in her chair looking absolutely like Whistler’s
picture of his mother, except that the hands were not idle in her
lap, but fingered unceasingly a worn rosary.

Madame Morale’s piety was not limited to preaching. It included
hospitality. We have brought along some fresh supplies of food
for our Headquarters Mess; and as soldiers from different outfits
kept drifting in to the kitchen looking for water and incidentally
anything else they could get, the old lady dipped into our scanty
stock, saying, “Here, my poor boys, there is much food here”—until
nothing was left.

In going into action in this last phase of the Argonne fight
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dravo was in command, with Major
Anderson second in command, Captain Merle-Smith (vice Kelly,
evacuated with fever) commanding the 1st Battalion, Captain Henry
A. Bootz, in charge of Anderson’s Battalion, and Major Reilley
with the 3rd. We relieved the 78th Division at the village of
Artaise-le-Vivier. Here the Germans had left in such a hurry that
large stores of flour and vegetables had been left behind. On
asking the inhabitants the reason for this extraordinary occurrence
we were answered by the word “_Avions_.” In this sector we have
absolute mastery of the air and we see vast flights of planes
spread out like wild ducks in V-shaped fashion advancing over the
German lines. I almost sympathize with the poor Boches, for I
certainly do not like aerial bombs.

The next three days was a foot-race, each battalion taking its
turn in the lead as the others became exhausted. They swept from
village to village, or rather from hill to hill, carefully closing
around the villages, generally meeting with but little resistance,
the last of the Germans, invariably a machine gun group, taking
their flight fifteen minutes to a half hour before our men could
get up. Colonel Dravo was out in the front with his wild Irish,
while Anderson had the equally important task of trying to get the
kitchens and supplies through. Lieutenants Schwinn, McDermott,
Goodell, Henry and Bell and Sergeant Scanlan labored night and day
to get the kitchens through, crossing muddy fields and fording
small streams because the roads were everywhere destroyed.
Lieutenant Seidelman and Corporal Malone were busy putting up signs
at every corner to guide the rear elements in the right direction
to reach our swiftly moving advance.

I missed Major Lawrence, who is generally very much in evidence
when action is on, but I discovered that he had very wisely made up
his mind that the main thing was to see that the ambulances found
a way to follow up the Infantry. He had plenty of willing doctors
under him to look after any wounded men in the field, but it was
evident by the rate our Infantry was traveling that wounded men
would not be evacuated for several days unless the ambulances got
through. When finally they were needed, he had them there, both for
the use of our men and those of other outfits which had not been so
carefully provided for.

For two days the advance was an interesting race. The 6th Division
was coming up the road behind ours, anxious to get a chance to
relieve us and get into line before the war would come to an end.
Each night they thought that surely by morning they would catch
up; but our lads, moving freely across the open country, always
kept well in advance of troops that had to move by column; and each
day they were still further in the van. Our own Mess Sergeants and
Cooks labored night and day to get the food forward, but for two
days and more they, too, were left behind in the race. The men
in front were not left entirely hungry, as in every village from
which they drove the enemy the inhabitants drew out all of their
scanty stores and served them with coffee, vegetables and a little
bread, with unlimited supplies of bouquets and kisses. In spite of
drawbacks it was a nice war.

At 10:30 on the evening of the 6th, there came a most extraordinary
order from Corps through Division that it was imperative that Sedan
should be captured before the end of the next day; that if troops
were resting they should be immediately aroused and sent on their
way; and that the city should be taken if the last officer and man
should drop in his tracks. Luckily for the men it took some time to
get that order forward to the line, as the horses of Jack Percy,
Earl Pierce and young Underwood were fatigued by the incessant
work, in which their riders shared, of carrying messages night and
day. So the kitchens got through and the men were fed before they
started out once more.

On November 7th, Bootz with the 2nd Battalion was in the van. On
Hill 332 the Germans put up a stronger resistance than they had
hitherto shown; and it came at a time when our fire was growing
weak on account of the expenditure of ammunition, which there
was little means of replacing. Bootz told Captain Stout, who was
in command of G Company, that the hill must be taken, and Stout
advanced with thirty-eight men of his own company and a detachment
from Company H to capture the hill. As they kept crawling in on the
Germans the latter began to waver, and the Captain called on his
followers to advance upon them with fixed bayonets. With a great
cheer our fellows swarmed up the crest and the daunted Germans,
after a futile stand, grounded their guns, threw up their hands and
surrendered. The men whose names stand high in the Company annals
for this deed are, first of all, the dead: John Danker, George
Spiegel, Onefrio Triggiano and Raymond Hawkins. Also the gallant
captain and Lieutenant Otto; First Sergeant Meagher, Sergeants
Martin Murphy, Martin Shalley, Irving Framan, Denis Corcoran, John
Brogan and Francis Malloy, the two latter being wounded; James
Regan, Thomas Gallagher, Hilbert and Henry, Remington, Youmans and
Leavensworth, and, to complete the list, a bold Choctaw Indian with
the martial name of McCoy. Sergeant Patrick Travers, of Company H,
received high praise from everybody. While the German resistance
was still determined, he went alone against a machine gun on the
right and captured it single-handed, taking three German officers
and four men.

The same day B Company lost Sergeant Ed. Kramer, and Martin
Gilfoyle; C Company, Frank Casserly, Michael Golinski, and Joseph
Peressine; Company E, Orliff Gilbert, Samuel Kelly and William
Lambert; Machine Gun Company, William Gunnell; and the Sanitary
Detachment, Michael Cavanaugh.

Meanwhile events were happening which made the order to advance
without ceasing seem more extraordinary. Elements of the 1st
Division appeared on our flank and rear. They, too, had received
orders to the same effect from their Corps Commander, and had
advanced to the left across the front of the 77th Division, and
were taking possession of our line, which was the one leading
straight towards Sedan. They had crept up around Bulson in
the morning, only to find General MacArthur and 84th Brigade
Headquarters in possession of the village. Elements of the 16th
Infantry now came on Bootz’s hill and claimed it as theirs. “This
is my hill, and my line of advance,” said Bootz. “If you say it’s
yours, show your booty. I have twenty-five prisoners and twelve
machine guns; what have you got to show for it?” And Bootz ordered
his battalion to advance, leaving to the others to do what they
would.

Nobody blamed the 1st Division for this mix-up, because they
certainly had orders the same as ours to advance and capture Sedan.
The whole thing is a mystery. A staff officer told me that neither
of us had any right here, as Sedan lies in the sector of the French
Division on our left, and considering what it means to the French,
they are certainly the ones who have the best right to capture it.

In this sector we had a visit from Sergeant Alexander Woollcott,
who is well known in New York as a dramatic critic, and who has
been assigned by G. H. Q. to the duties of reporter for the _Stars
and Stripes_. He is always on hand when there is trouble, and the
field of war becomes a pleasant place for me whenever he is there.
We have swapped stories and discussed men and books in the weirdest
places. He is communicative rather than inquisitive and one never
thinks of him as a reporter, but he gets all the information he
wants and all the more effectively because there is no appearance
of seeking it. He can even make Anderson talk.

During this period Anderson had been forging ahead with his
Headquarters group, expecting to find Bootz in Chaumont. He entered
that town with a couple of doctors, Lieutenant Rerat, and his
liaison men, only to find that they were the first to get there,
and the enemy had not yet completely evacuated it. They were
under rifle fire as they came along the street, and had a merry
little sniper’s battle before they got possession. Then Lieutenant
McCarthy set up his one-pound cannon on the edge of the village,
and soon had the German gunners putting for safety over the hill.
So Anderson captured a town for himself, and for once did Colonel
Dravo out of the bouquets and kisses. Though, even here, Rerat got
the cream of it.

We kept going through that day, the 3rd Battalion relieving the
2nd during the night, and reaching on November 8th, the village
of Wadelincourt on the heights of the Meuse, directly overlooking
Sedan. A patrol from Company M with orders to go down to the Meuse
and scout up to the suburbs of Sedan, got nearest of all American
troops to that famous city. Eighteen men started out, of whom most
were wounded, but Corporal John McLaughlin, with two men, carried
out the mission and reported the results of the reconnaissance.
Under shell fire that night Albert Bieber and Carl Maritz of
Company I were killed and Lieutenant Behrendts, the Company
Commander, and many others were wounded. James P. Smith of Company
M was also killed and Sergeant Lester Lenhart of Company E was
mortally wounded.

That night our Division was relieved by the 40th French Division,
which from the beginning had the right of way. As a matter of
courtesy the French Division Commander invited a company of the
165th and 166th to enter with his troops for the occupation of the
suburbs of Sedan. Company D of our regiment was selected for the
purpose and Lieutenant Cassidy had them all ready, but through some
mix-up of orders they were not called upon to share in the little
ceremony.

On November 8th we marched back to Artaise and the next day to Les
Petites Armoises; on the 10th, to Vaux-en-Dieulet. The 11th found
us at Sivry-les-Buzancy, where we spent two days.

On our way in I got a rumor that the Armistice was signed. I had
always believed that the news of victory and peace would fill me
with surging feelings of delight. But it was just the contrary; no
doubt because the constraint I had put upon my natural feelings
during the year were taken off by the announcement. I knew that
in New York and in every city at home and throughout the world
men were jubilant at the prospects of peace. But I could think of
nothing except the fine lads who had come out with us to this war
and who are not alive to enjoy the triumph. All day I had a lonely
and an aching heart. It would be a lesser thing to have been killed
myself than to go back to the mothers of the dead who would never
more return. Luckily for me my dear friend Chaplain Nash came over
to see me and walked me for hours through the desolate country,
encouraging me to express my every feeling until fatigue and the
relief of expression brought me back to a more normal mood.

The men had no certainty that the rumors were true, and discounted
them. On November 13th we marched to Landres et Saint Georges which
we had striven vainly to enter from the other side five weeks
before. The village was almost completely demolished and our
troops with others of the Division pitched their shelter tents on
all the hills surrounding the town. That night official information
was given of the Armistice. The men raided the Engineer and Signal
Stores for rockets of all descriptions and the whole sky was filled
with lights which in war would have demanded the expenditure of at
least a million shells. Bonfires were blazing all over the hillside
_Finie la Guerre_. The war was over.

My duties, like my feelings, still lay in the past. With men from
all the companies I went round the battlefield to pay as far as I
could my last duties to the dead, to record and in a rough way to
beautify their lonely graves, for I knew that soon we would leave
this place that their presence hallows, and never look upon it
again.

On the 15th, in accordance with Division orders, a formal muster
was held. Our strength was 55 officers and 1,637 men, with 8
officers and 43 men attached, 1,300 short of the number we had
brought into the Argonne. Of the survivors, not many more than 600
were men who had left New York with the regiment a little over a
year ago. And most of these belonged to the Adjutant’s Office,
Battalion and Company Headquarters, Kitchens, Band and Supply
Company. In the line companies, there are about twenty-five rifle
men to each company who are old-timers and nearly all of these have
wound stripes earned in earlier engagements. The great bulk of the
old regiment is in hospitals, convalescent and casual camps; some
of them promoted, some transferred, hundreds of them invalided
home, a great many, alas! buried on battlefields or in hospital
cemeteries.