Though it is an unusual thing for the Commander-in-Chief to give in his dispatches the names of the troops who took part in a particular engagement, Sir Douglas Haig makes special mention of the Irish Brigade in his message announcing that Guillamont had fallen. "The Irish regiments which took part in the capture of Guillamont on September 3 behaved," he says, "with the greatest dash and gallantry, and took no small share in the success gained that day." September 3 was a Sunday. On the night before the battle the Irish troops selected for the attack on Guillamont bivouacked on the bare side of a hill. They were the Connaughts, the Royal Irish, the Munsters and the Leinsters. The rain had ceased, but the ground was everywhere deep in mud, the trenches were generally flooded and the shell holes full of water. It was a bleak and desolate scene, relieved only here and there by the sparkle of the little fires around which the platoons clustered. Just as the men of one of the battalions were preparing to wrap themselves in their greatcoats and lie down for the rest which they might be able to snatch in such a situation, the Catholic chaplain came over the side of the hill and right to the centre of the camp. "In a moment he was surrounded by the men," writes Major Redmond. "They came to him without orders--they came gladly and willingly, and they hailed his visit with plain delight. He spoke to them in the simple, homely language which they liked. He spoke of the sacrifice which they had made in freely and promptly leaving their homes to fight for a cause which was the cause of religion, freedom and civilisation. He reminded them that in this struggle they were most certainly defending the homes and the relations and friends they had left behind them in Ireland. It was a simple, yet most moving address, and deeply affected the soldiers." Major Redmond goes on to say: "When the chaplain had finished his address he signed to the men to kneel, and administered to them the General Absolution given in times of emergency. The vast majority of the men present knelt, and those of other faith stood by in attitudes of reverent respect. The chaplain then asked the men to recite with him the Rosary. It was most wonderful the effect produced as hundreds and hundreds of voices repeated the prayers and recited the words, 'Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.' At the dawn Masses were said by the chaplains of all the battalions in the open, and most of the officers and men received Holy Communion."