Company A failed to get the farm that day, but their dogged persistence helped to make the task of Company C an easier one. This Company was led by Captain Bootz with Lieutenants Irving, Allen, Betty, Stone and Friedlander. They advanced with their right near to the brook and their left on the slope of the hill towards Seringes. A machine gun on the south edge of Bois Colas hampered them, but they got up one of our guns with Lieutenant Davis and Sergeant John O’Leary and soon put it out of action. When they got to the woods they beat their way through them cautiously, expecting every moment to find resistance, but they met only one frightened German who was glad when they made him prisoner. From the other side they could see a disconcerted enemy dotting the slopes in front of the forest of Nesles. The riflemen immediately got busy and when Lieutenants Davis and Bell came up with the machine guns, commanded by Captain Seibert, the field gray uniforms disappeared under their fire.
The first platoon, under Lieutenant Allen, had harder going. Its task was to cover the left flank as the line advanced, which brought the men along the top of the hill, where they suffered severely. Sergeant Crittenden was killed and Louis Torrey, a pious lad, Charles Geary also, and Carlton Ellis and R. J. Schwartz. Sergeant Dan Garvey and Frank Daley, John J. Murphy, Patrick Cronin and one of the Gordon brothers were fatally wounded and carried off the field. Harry McAllister was badly wounded. Big, impulsive Mike Cooney carried him down through a rain of fire to the bottom and then went back through it to get his rifle. James Allen lay out on the hill moaning. Harry Horgan started up to get him but was killed before reaching him. Thomas O’Connor crept up cautiously and coolly. He was stooping to pick him up when a bullet struck him and he fell on the body of his comrade. Nothing daunted, Michael Ruane and William McCarthy made their way up that hill of death and carried down their wounded comrade. Both Allen and McAllister afterwards died of their wounds.
The biggest price paid for the capture of Bois Colas was when the courageous soldier and trusted leader, Captain Henry Bootz, was put out of action by a bullet which passed through his chest from side to side. He had a wound which would have killed an ordinary man, but he merely grinned, took his pipe which he used in action to signal to his men and threw it to Lieutenant Betty, saying: “Here, son, I won’t need this for a while.” He started back, followed by his faithful orderly, Michael Sypoula, better known as “Zip,” who had gotten a wound himself and was happy that he had a reason for sticking to his beloved Captain. First Sergeant Gene Halpin and Maguire assisted Captain Bootz to the rear. Lieutenant Friedlander had also received a dangerous face wound and had been carried off the field by Austin McSweeney of the Headquarters Company.
Major Donovan, never happy unless in the middle of things, had gone up the bed of the brook so as to keep ahead of the advance of C on the left and A on the right. Lieutenant Ames, his Adjutant, was with him, led by devotion as well as duty, for the Major was his ideal leader. They lay half in the brook, resting on the bank, when a sniper’s bullet from the farm yard whizzed past Donovan’s ear and struck Ames in the head, liberating for larger purposes a singularly attractive and chivalrous soul.
Lieutenant Connelly tells of coming up with Sergeant Tom O’Malley and Corporal Gribbon to receive orders from the Major about taking over the line from Company C. He did not know just where to find him until he met Bootz going down the brook bed with his faithful attendants. Following up the stream he found Donovan still in the water with Ames’s body by his side. The Major also had received a bullet wound in the hand. Nearby, Pete Gillespie, whose machine gun was out of order, was absorbed in the game of getting the sniper who had killed the Lieutenant. All stopped to watch him and his rifle. Pete settled down, intent on a dead horse near the farm. Suddenly he saw something had moved behind it. He cuddled his rifle, waited and fired. They could see the sniper behind the horse half rise, then drop. The beloved Lieutenant was avenged.
The day’s work had improved the situation immensely. Control of Bois Colas gave a better command of the terrain northwards to the edge of the forest, although Bois Brulé, a narrow strip of woods which lay between, was still alive with machine guns. Meurcy Farm was not yet occupied, but its capacity for being troublesome was reduced by its being outflanked by our left. Anderson’s battalion held the lower slopes of the hill that had been taken by the third battalion the first day, and kept the Germans from reoccupying it permanently. Anderson was in touch with the 84th Brigade which was on the same line with himself. The Iowas and part of the Alabamas had taken the town of Sergy. It was a tough nut to crack, and took all the dash of the Southerners and the stubborn persistence of the Westerners to conquer and hold it. The elements of the regiment on our immediate right delayed their advance until the whole brigade was in a position to move forward.
The other regiment in our Brigade made a fine advance on our left. The 2nd Battalion passed through the first, and after our regiment had taken Bois Colas, the Ohios could be seen pushing up to the road running from Fere en Tardenois to Meurcy Farm. To co-operate with them Major Donovan sent Lieutenant Betty with what was left of Company C (sixty-five men) to move with their flank, Company D holding Bois Colas with forty-two men. The Ohios kept advancing and by nightfall had captured the southern half of Seringes et Nesles. The upper portion which curved over to the top of our valley was not occupied until the German retreat had begun.
The situation was set for a further advance. Headquarters at regiment, brigade, and division were busy preparing for it and the Artillery were ready to co-operate. They had been shelling Bois Brulé just in front of us, and the upper edge of Seringes et Nesles and the edge of the forest all day. Telephone lines had been stretched to the front by the 117th Signal Battalion and our own signal section of Headquarters Company.
These were exceedingly busy days at Colonel McCoy’s P. C., for at last there was a spot that one could dignify with the title of Post of Command. The first day of the battle there had been three or four posts in succession. On Saturday evening Colonel McCoy was in the Chateau de Fere, but when he got orders for his regiment to make the attack he went forward with them himself to join McKenna near the river. When the battalion went over he set up his headquarters right there in a shallow trench on the exposed river slope. It seemed no place for a commanding officer on whom so much had to depend, but he made up his mind that it was his place to be where he could view the battle himself, as there was no speedy way for him to get information, and the immediate decision concerning the actions and fate of his men would rest largely on his own judgment. These were his reasons; but there is always a good deal of the element of personality back of anybody’s reasons. And Frank R. McCoy, soldier of five campaigns, would naturally see the force of reasons which brought him as close as possible to the firing line. The Germans began to argue the point in their usual violent way, but the Colonel remained unconvinced.
Lieutenant Rerat was wounded slightly in that hole, and many men hurt around it. Finally Captain Hurley was badly wounded while reporting to his Chief, and the Staff united with the Germans in arguing that it was not the best place to do regimental business. So Colonel McCoy brought them back a ways to a sunken road that ran across the town. Here the shelling pursued them and Lieutenant B. B. Kane, a fine, manly fellow, received a mortal wound from a shell that exploded a few feet from where he was standing in a group around the Colonel.