In building their own exclusive road over the Mort Homme, which enabled the rolling kitchens to bring up hot meals to the infantry, the Illinois engineers had shown their capacity for "rustling," which they now applied in gathering material for their new task. In broad daylight, in full view of the enemy's guns which forced them to wear their gas masks, they brought their boards and timbers to the river bank and did their building. Shells were falling on their labors at Consenvoye at the rate of ninety an hour; but that did not interrupt their labors. Men fell, but others kept on the job. Punctuality was a strong point with the Illinois men. The bridges must be up on time, and they were. The time of crossing depended upon the movement of our 29th Division, coming up on the east bank as the flank of the advance of two French divisions. At 9 A. M. the 29th passed the word, and the regiment of the 33rd which had been assembled in the Forges Wood rushed for the bridges. Night would have been a more favorable time for crossing, perhaps; but that was not on the cards. All the divisional artillery was pounding the opposite bank as a shield, while the French artillery was also busy, and the advance of the infantry on the other bank was drawing fire. Thoroughly drilled for their part, the Illinois men lost no time in the crossing, which was effected with slight casualties. Now under command of the Seventeenth Corps, joining up with the flank of the 29th, it worked its way for a mile and a half up the river bank until it dug in at night on the edge of the Chaume Wood after a faultless day's work. In the operations east of the Meuse now begun, I shall describe only the actions of our own divisions. The 29th Division, under command of Major-General Charles G. Morton, had taken the name of the "Blue and Grey." Many of its Guardsmen were grandsons of veterans from New Jersey, Delaware, and Virginia. After nearly two months in the quiet trench sector at Belfort, it had been marched on the night of the 8th past the ruins of villages in the Verdun battle area for its initiation into two weeks of fighting, which showed that one side of the trough of the Meuse had no preference over the other in the resistance which the enemy had to offer.