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General John W. Geary, who commanded the division attacked, says :

" At 10.25 o'clock two brigades of Johnson's Division, having formed in
column of regiments, charged upon our line on the right. They met the
determined men of Kane's Brigade, which poured into them so continuous a fire
that when within seventy paces their columns wavered and soon broke to the
rear. The First Maryland Battalion (rebel ) was in the advance, and their dead
lay mingled with our own."

Xo greater tribute could be paid the little Second Maryland Infantry. Three
hundred brave men, magnified into two brigades closed in "columns by regi-
ments," charging into a division ! And yet " their dead lay mingled with our
own." Truly, to mingle the dead of the Second Maryland with the Federal dead
is the best evidence that the noble fellows charged to the very muzzles of the
guns of the enemy, where they died.

Surely, the present generation of Marylanders, and the countless genera-
tions to come, should be proud of the valor displayed by their forefathers in this,
the fiercest battle of the great Civil War.

But it was not only at Gettysburg, but in many battles before, and many
battles afterward, that the same sublime courage and devotion to the cause was
made manifest by Maryland's sons.