Marshal Foch, in decorating him, said, "What you did was the greatest
thing accomplished by any private soldier of all of the armies of
Europe."
His ancestors were cane-cutters and Indian fighters. Their lives were
rich in the romance of adventure. They were men of strong hate and
gentle love. His people have lived in the simplicity of the pioneer.
This is not a war-story, but the tale of the making of a man. His
ancestors were able to leave him but one legacy--an idea of American
manhood.
In the period that has elapsed since he came down from the mountains he
has done three things--and any one of them would have marked him for
distinction.
SAM K. COWAN.
I
A FIGHT IN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE
Just to the north of Chatel Chehery, in the Argonne Forest in France, is
a hill which was known to the American soldiers as "Hill No. 223."
Fronting its high wooded knoll, on the way to Germany, are three more
hills. The one in the center is rugged. Those to the right and left are
more sloping, and the one to the left--which the people of France have
named "York's Hill"--turns a shoulder toward Hill No. 223. The valley
which they form is only from two to three hundred yards wide.
Early in the morning of the eighth of October, 1918, as a floating gray
mist relaxed its last hold on the tops of the trees on the sides of
those hills, the "All America" Division--the Eighty-Second--poured over
the crest of No.
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