A delegation of ladies from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, volunteered to travel to the distant Gettysburg battlefield to help minister to the wounded soldiers being treated at a myriad of temporary field hospitals in and around the badly battered borough. One of the writers left her impressions of their brief pause in Wrightsville, and then a longer-than-planned sojourn in York.

She also gave a colorful word picture of their carriage ride from York to Gettysburg across what is today U.S. Route 30. It is a portrayal of pastoral beauty and serenity that is quite different than today's car ride across the modern landscape.

The ladies begin their day in Columbia, Pennsylvania, where they need to arrange for a boat to ferry them across the broad Susquehanna River because the Union militia had burned the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge.

Posted in Civilians Gettysburg Campaign Gettysburg battlefield Wrightsville York

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Local artist Bradley Schmehl's excellent depiction of the burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge will be featured on the cover of an upcoming book on the event by author Scott L. Mingus, Sr. Used by written permission of the artist as fair use for marketing and advertising this new book. Prints of Mr. Schmehl's painting are available on the Internet from Somerset House.

The Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge was set ablaze on the evening of June 28, 1863, by retreating Pennsylvania state militia to prevent it from being used by Brigadier General John B. Gordon's oncoming Confederate troops. The lurid glow from the burning bridge was clearly visible to many onservers in and near Lancaster. Later, one local woman and her friends used the pen name "Patriot Daughters" to write a book about their service in the field hospitals of Gettysburg after the battle. She was among those Lancaster County residents who could see the flames from the distant nighttime spectacle along the river.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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...

Posted in Civilians Confederates Dillsburg Dover Gettysburg Campaign Hanover Hanover Junction Jefferson Wrightsville York

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One of John Gordon's Georgians left a brief anecdote from his passage through York. This has not appeared in print since the 19th Century, I believe, when it was in a newspaper. Here is Private G. F. Agee's account...

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Sunday dawned bright and early on June 28. Most townspeople in York went about their daily routines, including dressing nicely for worship, strolling the sidewalks, and visiting friends and relatives. While church was in progress at St. Paul's Lutheran, the vanguard of the Confederate division of Jubal Early marched into York, preceded by the pioneer corps and advance pickets from the 31st Georgia. Rebels hauled down the large flag in the Center Square, as well as a smaller one from a nearby shop. York was now under Confederate control. The lead brigade, the Georgians of John Gordon, moved on to Wrightsville, while Jubal Early ringed York with artillery and established a series of camps.

Posted in Civil War people Civilians Confederates Dillsburg Emigsville Gettysburg Campaign Hanover Wrightsville Yankees York York Haven

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Background post: 2008 speaker schedule - York CWRT

The next meeting of the York Civil War Round Table will be Wednesday, June 18, at 7:00 p.m. at the York County Heritage Trust's auditorium (250 E. Market Street in York). The guest speaker will be Mr. Tom Schaefer, a long-time York County historian and local educator. Tom will speak on the topic "The Skirmish at Wrightsville: A Tactical Analysis."

Tom has provided a synopsis of his talk, which dovetails nicely with my upcoming book on the bridge burning from Ironclad Publishing.

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When not on campaign, Civil War troops (particularly the Federals) had semi-permanent camps with tents and log structures. While on the road, they made do without these luxuries. For the Rebels on the march to Pennsylvania, the camp was usually a piece of grass, an old blanket, and the starry sky. (Library of Congress)

Recently I posted a message and photograph of the John Wiest house / tavern in Spring Grove, which was used as a Confederate camp site during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Some of you have inquired as to the locations of other CSA camps and headquarters during the Confederate invasion, so I will begin a series of occasional articles on the topic. First, some basic information to help set the table for this new series...

Posted in Confederate camp sites Confederates Gettysburg Campaign Other places Spring Grove Wrightsville York

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Confederate troops from Georgia haul down York's huge flag in this Lewis Miller sketch, courtest of YCHT. York became the largest town in the North to be occupied by the Confederates. It was one of more than fifty such towns and villages in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to see Rebels marching through the streets during the summer of 1863.

In several previous posts, we have looked at the Confederate invasion of York through the eyes of resident M. L. Van Barman, in an account not fully republished since 1911. Backgrounds posts: Introduction, Jubal Early arrives in Gettysburg, The Rebels Approach York, Farquhar Steps Up, York "Surrenders" at Farmers.

I cannot imagine what it would be like for an enemy army to march through the streets of your hometown, and then to physically occupy it. Millions of people throughout history have experienced such events, sometimes with horribly tragic results. Some time ago, I studied the Roman occupation of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, one of the more brutal occupations. York would be spared any significant damage, and women and children would not be molested as terms of an agreement offered to York's delegation by John B. Gordon at Farmers, PA. In this case, the opposing army would enter town peacefully and no civilians would be injured or killed, unlike some places in Indiana and Ohio visited a few weeks later by Rebel raiders under John Hunt Morgan.

Here is the continuation of M. L. Van Barman's eyewitness account of Jubal Early's raid...

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Custom made miniature of a 14th Brooklyn soldier, sculpted by Alan Ball and painted by Marion Ball.

On Tuesday, July 2, 1867, a group of Civil War veterans from the 14th Brooklyn Infantry, a celebrated unit known as the "Red-Legged Devils" for their bright crimson baggy trousers, traveled back to Gettysburg to visit the battlefield. Their agenda took them first to Philadelphia for some sightseeing, including Independence Hall and the U.S. Mint. After lunch at one of Philly's leading restaurants, the vets toured Fairmount Park and then took in a minstrel show in the early evening. The night was completed with a huge spread of food and desserts at the local armory. The men went to bed full, satisfied, and eager to head on to Gettysburg to revisit where they had fought four years earlier.

Their trip on July 3 would take them through the heart of York County.

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One of the Confederate objectives during the Gettysburg Campaign was to seize the long covered bridge across the Susquehanna River between Wrightsville in York County and Columbia in Lancaster County. Lt. General Richard S. Ewell ordered Major General Jubal Early to destroy the bridge, but Early instead decided to capture the bridge and keep it intact, cross into Lancaster County, and attack Harrisburg from the rear.

Among the defenders in the horseshoe-shaped line of earthworks just west of Wrightsville were the soldiers of the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia, an emergency regiment hastily raised in the counties northeast of Harrisburg (including many small towns along today's I-81). One Schuylkill County infantryman left a written record of his brief service in York County.

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Some of you have recently asked me about the progress of my latest manuscripts. Here is a brief update on my writing activities.

1. Human Interest Stories from the Gettysburg Campaign, Volume 3 is about halfway finished. There is no timetable for completing this, as Colecraft Industries and I have published three of these human interest books in the past 2 years, and it's time to slow down to allow the market to catch up. The formal introduction of Volume 2 will be this spring, with the same sales channels as the first two books.

2. Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1862 is finally ready for printing. The next step will be to receive the galley proofs, approve them, and then it's off to the printing press. This book is being published by Ironclad Publishing and is Volume 5 in their Discovering Civil War America series. I cover Gordon's brigade from Virginia to the burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, and then on to Gettysburg a second time.

3. A Spirit of Daring: The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign has been completed and just now sent off to the publisher. This should be in print by 2010. I have a lot of material on the Tigers' brief stay in York County, much of it rarely or never before published.

4. Brothers Divided is my latest full-color wargaming scenario book, chock full of great photos of some of the best Civil War dioramas and wargaming table layouts. Volume 1 of this new series will be published late in 2008 by Marek/Janci Design of Chicago.

Work is just beginning on my latest project - a regimental history of the 51st Ohio.

Also, watch for Roll Call to Destiny, a new book by Brent Nosworthy. I helped research and write the Seven Pines / Fair Oaks chapter.

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Confederate POWs taken at the Battle of Gettysburg

In my last entry, I briefly looked at an account of the first Confederate soldiers to be taken prisoner in York County during the Gettysburg Campaign - straggling cavalrymen seized by Hanover citizens and turned over to the military. During the subsequent week, dozens more Confederates would be rounded up by various Union cavalry patrols, or taken in battle in the fighting at Hanover on June 30, 1863. With the exception of the prisoners taken at the Battle of Hanover, the majority of these POWs were stragglers, deserters, or men who had otherwise become separated from their commands.

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G. O. Haller, courtesy of USAMHI.

Several York Countians played important roles in the Civil War, the majority supporting the Union side, but with a few serving as officers in the Confederate army. Most of these men and women have receded into obscurity in today’s consciousness, but in the mid-1860s were well known and prominent. In the months to come in the Cannonball blog, I will introduce you to a few of these 19th Century personalities and provide resources for further study should you desire to dive a little deeper into these folks’ lives.

One of these long ago celebrities was Granville Owen Haller, a York native who became a postbellum millionaire in Seattle, Washington. A fashionable and intelligent man who loved the challenge of chess, Haller had a checkered military career that reached its apex during the first two years of the Civil War. The Gettysburg Campaign would be his final active service.

So, who was Granville Haller, and why was he important to York County during the Civil War?

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