From Hill 378 the 80th Division's movement of troops, guns, and transport in the open was almost as visible through powerful glasses as people in the streets below from a church steeple. As the 33rd was already dug in and could advance no farther except by crossing the river, the 80th was convinced that it was receiving as a surplus the allotment from over the Meuse which otherwise might have been sent against the Illinois men. A measure of the increase of artillery fire is given in the Third Corps report, which estimates that the enemy sent 65,000 shells into its area on the 27th, compared to 5,000 on the 26th. Against this long-range fire the 80th's divisional artillery was as helpless as against falling meteors. The Blue Ridge men must endure the deluge with philosophic fatalism. Their own gunners could only give them barrages, and concentrate on machine-gun nests and such field battery positions as were located. The deadly accuracy of the enemy's artillery fire, its wide distribution, blasting holes in the roads, loosing on infantry as it deployed, on convoys of artillery ammunition, and raking our front-line positions, only made it more important that the next attack should be well delivered and in force. So it was. At one in the afternoon, under the barrage of their artillery, trench mortars, and machine-guns which they had forced through to the front, the Blue Ridge men, with a dash worthy of the traditions of their fathers in the Civil War, gained their objectives, except on the left, where the 4th Division was having troubles of its own of a kind which the 80th could fully appreciate. Though in the second belt of woods, the 80th was not yet to be squeezed out. There was Brieulles to be taken yet, and the German reinforcements which were rapidly arriving required more attention than the other divisions of the Corps could spare from their own fronts. The German command decided that it was time that these Americans had a taste of offensive tactics themselves. Fresh German troops, advancing from Brieulles on the third morning, delivered a sharp counter-attack; but the Blue Ridge men had no patience with any attempt to drive them back from the ground they had won. They were of the "sticking" kind, as their forefathers had been. It was a joyous business, repulsing that counter-attack to the accompaniment of such yells as Union soldiers associated with Confederate ferocity. It was enlightening, too, in that it showed both them and their adversaries what a difference there is between charging machine-guns and using them to stop a charge.