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In this whirl of excitement the Second Maryland seemed to be ubiquitous.
It was first ordered here, and then there, and, although its physical strength was
not great, the example it set and the moral effect of its prompt and immediate
obedience to orders made an impression.

Finally General McComb ordered Captain Torsch to hold a certain line of
works,'' and I will try to form the brigade on you." It was the last order given the
Second Maryland by General McComb. The battalion formed in line, and some
of the men (assisted by a few men of the battery) ran two guns of Purcell into
position and opened a fire of grape and cannister upon the approaching enemy,
then not over three hundred yards distant.

But that avalanche of men pressed on with resistless energy and were soon
swarming inside the Confederate works. McComb's Brigade seemed at sea, and
the only command intact in it was the Second Maryland. Foot by foot they resisted
the encroachment of the enemy; but such an unequal contest could not long
endure. Fiercely the contest waged, and muskets were clubbed and crashed into
human skulls, but all in vain. Captain Ferd. Duvall, with Lieutenants Polk,
Zollinger, Byus and Wise, with about thirty men, were unable to escape from the
works, and were captured. The remainder escaped in two different squads, one
under Captain Torsch, and the other under nobody, but the latter, meeting
remnants of the Seventh and Fourteenth Tennessee Regiments (a portion of their
old brigade ) united with them, and made for the north bank of the Appomattox
River, which all succeeded in attaining by means of two flat-bottomed boats found
along the river.

This remnant of the brigade rested that night after a march of eight or ten
miles, and a weary lot they were.

On the morning of the 3d this fragment of a once famous brigade assembled
and determined upon some sort of organization. Upon looking over the brave little
band of Maryland boys it was discovered that there were twenty-three muskets
present, and not a commissioned officer. Who had escaped from that wretched fort
was to them an uncertainty ! but it was hoped before the day had passed to ascer-
tain fully the situation in which the battalion was placed. Daniel A. Fenton. of
Company G, the ranking non-commissioned officer, but a gallant soldier, then took
command. Captain Torsch, however, soon came up, and the weary march continued
until that fatal 9th day of April 1865.

But we will not harrow the feelings of the reader by going into details of the
suffering's and privations and uncomplainingly endured by those left of the once
glorious Army of Northern Virginia. When Amelia Court House was reached
and the rations that all had expected to meet there were not found, these famished
and footsore men only expressed bitter disappointment, but the thought of giving
up the struggle never entered their minds.