SECOND BRIGADE PUT TO TEST
“The second brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line of trenches, roughly five hundred yards, which it was holding at five o’clock on Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the third brigade, and by the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity had involved that brigade. The second brigade had maintained its lines. It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to reproduce the tactical maneuvers by which earlier in the fight the third brigade had adapted itself to the flank movement of overwhelming numerical superiority. He flung his left flank round and his record is that in the very crisis of this immense struggle he held his line of trenches from Thursday at five o’clock until Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday afternoon he had not abandoned his trenches. There were none left. They had been obliterated by artillery. He withdrew his undefeated troops from the fragments of his field fortifications, and the hearts of his men were as completely unbroken as the parapets of his trenches were completely broken. Such a brigade!
“It is invidious to single out any battalion for special praise, but it is perhaps necessary to the story to point out that Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett, commanding the ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, eighth battalion, of the second brigade, held the extreme left of the brigade position at the most critical moment.
“The battalion was expelled from the trenches early on Friday morning by an emission of poisonous gas, but recovering in three-quarters of an hour, it counter-attacked, retook the trenches it had abandoned and bayoneted the enemy, and after the third brigade had been forced to retire, Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett held his position, though his left was in the air, until two British regiments filled up the gap on Saturday night.