Another veteran division was to form the right side of the wedge: the 32nd, National Guard of Michigan and Wisconsin, under Major-General William G. Haan, a leader whose fatherly direction and "flare" communicated team-play and enthusiasm which an iron will could drive to its limit in battle. Iron was needed now: the iron of the spearhead, which would not blunt. The 32nd knew open warfare from its storming of the heights of the Ourcq in the Château-Thierry operations; and working its way over trench warrens from its three days' fighting as a division attached to Mangin's Army in the Juvigny operation north of Soissons. Sent from its first hard battle to its second without time for rest or replacements, it marched away from Juvigny, after losses of seven thousand six hundred men in the two battles, with half its requisite number of infantry officers and its infantry companies reduced to one hundred men. When it went into camp at Joinville, it had eight days, hardly enough to recuperate from its exhaustion, in which to train in its veteran ways five thousand replacements, before, with only two hundred men to the company--and half recruits, be it remembered,--and with each company short three officers, it was started for the Meuse-Argonne area. But it was considered--it must be considered--veteran by the Army command for this emergency, which was to give it a front of three miles in the place of the relieved 37th and 91st Divisions. The Arrow division, as it was called, which had twice pierced the German line, was to pierce it a third time before it was withdrawn again. In comparison with the 32nd, the 1st was at the top of its form. It had not had heavy losses since its Soissons drive of July 18th-22nd. The two months' training of the replacements which it had then received included its experience in the Saint-Mihiel operation, which had been instructive without leaving many gaps in its ranks. On the 1st's front were the 5th Guard and 52nd German Divisions, which had come fresh into line. So veterans met veterans. The character of the opposition which the Missourians and Kansans of the 35th, whom the 1st had relieved, had faced, may be judged by the fact that for the four days in line before it advanced the 1st had daily average casualties of five hundred, while its men were hugging their fox-holes, readjusting their line, and throwing out patrols to gain information of service in the coming attack.