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. CHAPTER X WITH THE ARMY OF OCCUPATION On the 16th we took to the road again, happy at the thought that the Rainbow Division had received the honor of being chosen as part of the Army of Occupation. At the end of the first day’s march our Headquarters were at Baalon. Crossing the Meuse at Duns sur Meuse I ran into Hogstrom and Mullen of Company C, whom I had thought dead, but who had been captured by the Germans in the wire on the night of October 14th. They had been well used, they said, except for the fact that there was little to eat. We crossed the Belgian frontier on the morning of November 21st at the village of Fagny, which was all decorated up like Old Home Day. The village band—a nondescript outfit—played us into town. The people had made out of dress material American flags, or rather well-meant attempts at them, as five or six stripes and a dozen stars was about as near as they could come to it. After crossing the border we received a new commanding officer in the person of Colonel Charles R. Howland, a regular army man who had a regiment in the 86th Division. When that Division was broken up for replacement purposes, he was assigned to fill the vacancy in ours. About the same time Colonel Henry J. Reilly, who had been ably handling our brigade during the past five weeks, was superseded by General F. M. Caldwell, U. S. A. Colonel Reilly returned to the command of the 149th F. A.