Wrightsville: July 2008 Archives

A few years ago, York County author and blogger Jim McClure and I briefly discussed a fellow by the name of John A. Wilson, who is thought to be the last black Civil War veteran from York County to have been laid to rest. I started digging into this man, researching what Jim had found and searching for a little more information. Not only was "Quil" Wilson the last surviving black ACW veteran, he was among the youngest men to take up arms against the Confederates during the Gettysburg Campaign, when he served as an unpaid volunteer manning the trenches defending Wrightsville against the Confederate brigade of Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon. There are no specific records of Wilson's individual service at Wrightsville, but his small company was noted by the Lancaster Examiner and Herald as having "fought bravely."

An early 20th century view of the replacement bridge and the immediate area where several railroad buildings had burned down in 1863 as an indirect result of the Rebel invasion. Out of view to the right of this scene would have been the vicinity of the old industrial complex and warehouses that were also destroyed on June 28, 1863.

While Columbia Bank officials lamented the loss of their cash cow, the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, after a six-hour blaze that entirely destroyed it, many residents of Wrightsville watched in horror as embers from the burning bridge were carried by the wind into the buildings along the York County riverbank. Soon, several structures were on fire, and, in one of the Civil War's more amazing acts of humanity and compassion, Confederate officers ordered their men to form a bucket bridge to dip water from the canal and river. Hand-over-hand, the Georgia infantrymen passed the heavy buckets to the end of the line, where the water was thrown onto the most threatened buildings, many of which were saved by this act of heroism from the Rebel invaders. The irony? Some of the Georgians hailed from Darien, Georgia, a town torched a few weeks before by Union troops, including black soldiers from Columbia, Pennsylvania, across the river from Wrightsville.

Bonfires are ablaze on the 145th anniversary of the burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. The piers are the original ones from the covered bridge of Civil War days. Photos courtesy of Michael J. Belgie Sr. of Fire & Ice Photography. Used by written permission. Contact him to purchase this or other photographs.

Perhaps the most spectacular fire in the history of York and Lancaster counties was the June 28, 1863, blaze that fully consumed the world's largest covered bridge -- the venerable structure that had spanned the Susquehanna River between Wrightsville and Columbia. Union high command had ordered part of the bridge destroyed to prevent the Confederates from crossing the river (which was too swollen from recent rains to be forded, and the bridge was the only viable crossing between Harrisburg and Maryland). Attempts to blow up a single span failed, and the Pennsylvania militia resorted to Plan B - burn a section. The winds shifted, and the old bridge acted as a wind tunnel, carrying the flames eastward for six hours until the entire thing had collapsed as a smoldering wreckage into the river.

Jeb Stuart's three brigades of veteran Confederate cavalry rose in fields surrounding Dover and leisurely ate their breakfasts. Foraging patrols scoured neighboring farms for several miles looking for horses, mules, forage, horsehoes, and other supplies of military interest. They paid for them with worthless CSA currency or bank drafts to be paid by the Confederacy after the war ended. Scores of Union prisoners captured in Maryland or at the Battle of Hanover are paroled, released, and sent walking back down today's Route 74 to York. By early afternoon, Stuart's men are back in the saddle, as multiple columns wind their way through northwestern York County through Wellsville, Rossville, and Dillsburg, where the brigade of wealthy South Carolina planter and politician Wade Hampton III will camp for the night on the Mumper fruit farm.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the county...