When I got back to headquarters I found my own staff very considerably increased. Father Hanley had come back a couple of days before. The rumors of approaching action were all over France, so, sniffing the battle from afar, he got the hospital authorities to let him out and rejoin his regiment for the coming fight. I kept Father Carpentier attached to the regiment for the time being until I could get the Protestant chaplain that I had been petitioning for so long. Father Hanley still had a perceptible limp and was moving around with the aid of a stick so I told him that he would have to look after the hospital center (_Triage_) while the fight was on, a commission that he took with no good grace. To Father Carpentier I gave a roving commission to look after Catholics in the Ohio and Alabama regiments, a task for which his zeal and endurance especially qualified him. Now I found two more Chaplains on my hands—one from the Knights of Columbus, Father Moran, an Irish Priest, and one assigned to the regiment, Chaplain Merrill J. Holmes of the M. E. Church. I liked him on sight and we were not long in getting on a basis of cordiality which will make our work together very pleasant. It was too late to send the extra chaplains to other regiments as we were even then getting ready to move forward into line, so I decided to keep them all under my wing. I told the lieutenants of the Headquarters Company that it would not be my fault if they did not all get to Heaven because we had five chaplains along. “Five Chaplains,” said Lieutenant Charles Parker. “Great Heavens! there won’t be a thing left for any of the rest of us to eat.” The terrain which was to be the object of the attack of our three divisions was completely dominated on the left by the frowning heights of Mont Sec; and if they had been held in force by the enemy artillery it would have exposed our whole army corps to a flanking fire which would soon make progress impossible. It fell to the 1st Division to make their advance along the mountain side. The ground over which we were to pass was for the most part fairly level up as far as the twin towns of Maizerais and Essey, to the left of which the Rupt de Mad made its way through swamps at the base of the hill which was crowned by these two villages. A number of woods dotted the surface; one of them, the Bois de Remières, stood directly in front of our advance. No Man’s Land at this point was seven or eight hundred yards wide; and the German trenches, as we afterwards found, were not in very good condition, though there was plenty of wire standing both here and at other points that were prepared for defence. We were to jump off at the east of Seicheprey, and regimental headquarters and dressing station were established by Colonel Mitchell and Major Lawrence in the Bois de Jury, not far to the rear.