The Blue Ridge men were not abashed by hills and woods. They had been brought up among hills and woods. After breaking through the trench system in a clean sweep, by noon they were in the first belt of woods, though they had flanking fire from the Juré Wood on their right. They were up to schedule no less than the 33rd; but they had had only an introduction to what was in store for them. With the left of the intrenched 33rd as their pivot, they must take the second belt of woods between them and the river. On the river bank was the town of Brieulles, where they were supposed to rest their left when the task was finished. Brieulles did not appear to be far away on the map; but we were to be a long time in taking it. Fortunately the engineers--who deserve much credit for this--had a bridge over the Forges brook by nine in the morning for the artillery. This was good news to men looking across the open into the recesses of that second belt of woods, which appeared as peaceful from that distance as a patch in the Shenandoah valley. In a race against time--with the schedule burned into every officer's brain--the 80th could not wait for all the guns to come up. In the attack at three in the afternoon the front line of the division moved forward with drill-ground precision and the confidence of its morning's success. Since the 80th's movement had stopped at noon, the enemy had had three hours in which to prepare his reception of the charge. In a sense the success of the 33rd was a handicap to the 80th that afternoon. It aroused the enemy to the gravity of his situation along the Meuse. His remnants of units retreating before the 33rd were swinging round in front of the 80th; reserves had been hurried across the river and from Brieulles. By this time our plan was revealed to him along our whole front. The loss of more river bank had an important tactical relation to his defense of Montfaucon and the covering positions of the whale-back, toward which our Fifth Corps in the center was advancing rapidly. If he could hold his ground from the river bank to Cuisy, he might have our center in a salient. His determination to hold it blazed out from that soft carpet of green in cruel machine-gun fire, raking the open spaces. His artillery on the opposite bank of the Meuse, as well as on the near bank behind the second belt of woods and around Brieulles, opened fire immediately our charge developed under its observation. Undaunted, the Blue Ridge men pressed on across the open toward the machine-gun nests in the edge of the second belt, as toward a refuge in a storm. They took these, only to find that more machine-guns were echelonned in the recesses of the woods. Gas as well as high-explosive shells were falling in the first belt and at points where our reserves were concentrated. In openings or narrow stretches of the second belt where units were able to drive through, they looked out on more open spaces under command of machine-guns from