As the one regular division in line, the tried 4th, on the left of the Third Corps, would hardly be given the short end of the stick. There was no road in its sector. Once its transport was across the trench system, it had to switch back from the sector of the neighboring 79th Division to its own. This was a handicap characteristic of the stern problem of the 4th, which, if it failed, would set a bad example for inexperienced divisions. Being forewarned of what was expected of his regulars, General Hines was forearmed in his prevision. Recognizing the miserable character of the Esnes-Malancourt road which the division was to use, the engineers of the 4th began work on its improvement early in the evening of the 25th before the battle began. In common with the two other divisions of the Corps, the 4th had to cross the Forges brook. Its left flank, in _liaison_ with the 79th, faced the height of Cuisy, which was a flanking approach to the Montfaucon heights, and its right the practically continuous system of woods which joined up with those in front of the 80th. Thus it was a link between the swinging movement to the Meuse and the main drive, the mission of its left being to help force the evacuation of Montfaucon, and of its right to occupy the bank of the Meuse from Brieulles north to Sassey. The whole command was keyed up to great things when with a yell the men went over the top in the thick mist on the morning of the 26th. If not regular in the old sense, they took pride in being professional in skill, though most of the young officers, as in other regular divisions, were from the training camps. They did not belong to any part of the country. They were not National Guard or National Army, but just fighting soldiers who belonged to all America. Discipline was strict in this division. Its spirit of corps was in the conviction of its rigid efficiency. With hardly a waver in its methodical progress it had reached the Corps objective by 12.30. There it dug in, waiting until 5.30 for the division on its left, which was the keystone of the movement, to come up. Then the men rose again and went forward without any artillery support, only to meet what the divisions right and left were meeting in the rapidly stiffening German machine-gun defense, and to call for shields against murderous odds. In their road-making across the brook and the trench systems the engineers had used 40,000 sand-bags. Early in the afternoon they had a passageway which permitted of the slow passage of transport between intervals of filling in the ruts cut by the heavy trucks; but two divisions, in the section of the line where the farthest advance was expected, were limited to road facilities inadequate for one. It can only be said that if it had not been for the diligence of the engineers the situation would have been even worse.