What does all this mean? It means that of all the battalions concerned or engaged in attacking toward Metz during the drive that started the morning of November 10th, the only battalion that accomplished its mission, or in other words, the only one that was able to carry out its orders--the only one that captured and held anything, was the 2nd Battalion of the 365th Infantry. Had this battalion _not_ succeeded in capturing and holding Bois Frehaut, in fact had it not succeeded in all of its various missions at all times, and had its companies, as companies, not succeeded in all their various missions, I would not be publishing any book about it at all, let alone praising the battalion as I have.
But let us see some more quotations from things included in Dr. Scott’s History. Ralph W. Tyler, the colored war correspondent, writing, necessarily from hearsay mostly, at a time when the confusion and din of battle made it impossible to foresee results, could, however, see the landscape in general and he knew who was attacking and later who was holding Bois Frehaut. He also visited Bois Frehaut after the armistice, so among other things he wrote, page 289: “... and so the 2nd Battalion went into action with but one white officer, the Major. No unit in the advance had a more difficult position to take and hold than the position assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 365th. The Bois Frehaut was a network of barbed-wire entanglements, and the big guns in Metz had nothing to do but sweep the woods with a murderous fire, which they did most effectively. French and Senegalese in turn had failed to hold these woods, for it was worse than a hell--it had become the sepulchre of hundreds. I (Ralph W. Tyler) was over and through these woods; I saw the mass of barbed-wire entanglements; I saw the nests in the trees in which Germans had camouflaged machine guns that rained a fire upon the Allied troops.
“It is impossible to describe this scene of carnage. The order to the colored men of the 365th was to ‘take and hold’ although it was believed, almost to a certainty, that they could not hold it, even if they did take it. But they did take and hold it, and these men of the 2nd Battalion, with Spartan-like courage; with an endurance unbelievable, would be holding the position at this writing had not the armistice been signed or had they not received orders to retire.”