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ON TO CHEMIN-DES-DAMES

Four solid months the training proceeded, until, at the request of Gen. Edwards, the 26th was moved up to Chemin-des-Dames, leaving camp about February 1, the infantry from Neufchateau, the artillery from Brittany. On the afternoon of February 5, the guns of Battery A, 101st Field Artillery, took position on the line, and at 3.45 o'clock one of its 75s barked forth for the Division the first shot fired by the National Guard in the war. The shell case is at the Massachusetts State House as a memento of that event. That night the 101st Infantry went through the artillery lines and was the first National Guard contingent to enter the trenches. There was plenty of fighting at Chemin-des-Dames, though none on a large scale.

While on this sector the Yankee division was associated with the 11th French Army Corps and Gen. Edwards issued an order stating that he was pleased to consider the 11th Corps the god­father of the 26th Division. Gen. Maud Huy, commander of the 11th, and after the Armistice made commander of the fortress of Metz, wrote in reply: 'The 11th corps feels proud of the marked honor, being sure that, wherever he may be sent, the godson shall do credit to the godfather.'

After 46 days at Chemin-des-Dames the Division entrained at Soisson under heavy shell fire, and proceeded to Rimaucourt, in Haute Marne, not a great distance from Neufchateau. Much of the journey from Soisson was over the road, and it was still winter, with almost continuously rainy weather and exceedingly muddy roads. But the Division was not unhappy, for a rest period was promised, and the men needed rest and a little play. They got neither.

THE FORCED MARCH TO TOUL

The great German drive of March 21 had just started, sweep­ing over the very positions that the 26th had just vacated, and which the Hun might not have taken quite so easily had the Y. D. been there to help their French comrades to receive him. The Division had hardly arrived at Rimaucourt when orders came to proceed to the Toul sector, to relieve a French division, which, it was understood, was needed to help stem the German advance. The Toul sector was comparatively quiet but vitally important. Good troops were required to hold it against the possibility of seri­ous attack.

With scant warning the men started on a forced march, northward, through Neufchateau, 125 miles as the crow flies, and,

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