History of the 151st field artillery, Rainbow Division, by Louis L. Collins, lieutenant governor of Minnesota. Edited by Wayne E. Stevens, PH. D. Pub. by the Minnesota War records commission.

THE CHAMPAGNE DEFENSIVE

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towns back of the line. The idea of celebrating the Fourth with
the usual noise, but with the Boche as a target, appealed to them,
and they apparently took little account of the fact that such a procedure might be resented by the German gunners. The general
impression was that the Rainbow Division would be sent to a sector near Chateau-Thierry where, according to rumors, heavy fighting was taking place.
When July 3 passed without orders to move, the troops consigned the rumor of a Fourth of July offensive to the usual resting
place for army rumors and resigned themselves to a safe and sane
observance of the national holiday. It did, as a matter of fact,
prove to be a quiet Fourth until five o'clock in the afternoon.
There were neither parades nor band concerts in the little French
town in which the regiment was billeted. The day was somewhat
enlivened by the accidental discharge of an "unloaded" gun but
the casualty list contained only one name. Then at five o'clock
came the order to make preparations for a move. After all, the day
was to be a memorable one. By eight o'clock that evening every
unit of the command was on the road, headed north. Orders
were to occupy positions before daybreak and permitted of no delay.
Some twenty kilometers, twelve or thirteen miles, had to be traveled and much of the distance was covered at a trot, to the joy of
the gunners riding the caissons and limbers who had on previous occasions toiled over many a weary French kilometer on foot. As the
columns rumbled along, airplanes could be heard overhead, the
sound of the guns became louder and louder, and flares and rockets
became visible. There was no opportunity to stop at Suippes, the
historic little French city already badly damaged by shell fire and
bombing and practically demolished during the German attack ten
days later.
Day was breaking on the morning of July 5 as the batteries of
the 151st rolled up to their positions north of Suippes. Here the
men found themselves in an ugly, rolling, chalk-ridged country,
quite unlike the beautiful green Lorraine which they had left behind. All was brown and barren except in places where fir trees,
thinned by shell fire, often protecting old gun positions and trenches,
hinted of shade. To the north and west were ridges more densely