After the exhaustion of fighting its way through the forest on the first day, the 37th had used every available man on the second day. The engineers had now made a road through the forest. This, being unequal to caring for all the transport in a steady flow, was the more inadequate owing to the delays due to the repair of sloughs, which were always appearing at some point in its four-mile length. Hungry infantrymen lying on the moist ground were wondering if they would ever have the strength to rise again. The prodigal, hasty crowding in of reserves which necessity required had exposed all the troops to the widespread artillery fire and the long-range sweep of bullets, which caused many casualties. On the next day, the 28th, the Army command, as we know, was to call for a supreme effort all along the line. Despite the tireless labor of the gunners with their snatch ropes, most of the 37th's artillery was still stalled where it could be of no service. Without their shields the Ohio men again rose to the attack at seven on the morning of the 28th. In half an hour they had entered the Emont Wood on their left and the Beuge Wood on their right. They continued on toward the village of Cierges until the blasts of fire from the heights and woods of the whale-back, not only upon the elements in advance but upon those in support, forced them to take cover. They were now within a quarter of a mile of the Cierges-Nantillois road. Meanwhile the Germans had been filling Emont Wood with phosgene gas to such an extent that it became untenable. In another attack at 5.45 P.M. the Ohio men encircled the wood. By dark their outposts were just south of Cierges. Gettysburg did not last three full days, but any veterans who fought throughout that battle will have some idea of what the 37th Division as a whole had endured on September 26th, 27th, and 28th. The division commander reported lack of food and a "condition of almost collapse" among his men, which did not weaken the determination of Corps or Army to expend any energy remaining in the 37th in another effort on the next day to "crack" the chain of heights between the Aire and the whale-back. How fruitless this proved only makes the final effort of the 37th the more appealing. The Ohio men were willing; they were willing, after shivering on wet earth all night without blankets, as long as they had strength enough to stagger to their feet,--and they might have had more strength if they had had more food. There was only one relieving feature of their situation, so unfavorable from the first. A German water-point equal to supplying the whole division had been captured. There was enough to drink, if not enough to eat: that is, for such units as the water-carts could reach.