Results tagged “Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge” from Cannonball

York County Heritage Trust Sanctioned Civil War guide Scott L. Mingus Sr. will present a PowerPoint presentation on the Confederate occupation of Wrightsville during the Gettysburg Campaign, with special focus on the Union defense of the town and the subsequent burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. It was the longest covered bridge in the world, stretching nearly a mile and a quarter across the Susquehanna River.

The dinner and talk is sponsored by Historic Wrightsville Inc. and will be at 6:30 PM on Friday November 20, 2009 in the fellowship hall of the Locust Street United Methodist Church (314 Locust Street, Wrightsville, PA). It's a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for $11. For reservations call Carol Byers at 717-252-3319.

The talk is based upon Mr. Mingus's recent book, Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863 (Columbus, Ohio: Ironclad Publishing, 2009).

York County Heritage Trust sanctioned Civil War tour guide Scott L. Mingus, Sr. stands in front of the historic Strickler farmhouse off the Lincoln Highway near Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. Confederates under Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon deployed near this farm for their attack on the Union earthworks protecting the crossing over the Susquehanna River about a mile from this spot.

Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Bobby Housch is a school teacher in Hanover PA when he's not guiding tourists around the sprawling battlefield. A couple of weeks ago, he and I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon filming a series of a dozen or so short video clips covering the June 28, 1863, Civil War skirmish at Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. The fight was the second largest military encounter in York County during the war, behind the Battle of Hanover.

Part 1 of the multi-part Wrightsville tour series is now on-line for your viewing pleasure at Bobby's very popular blog, Gettysburg Daily. In the weeks to come, he will post the rest of the videos, which include stops at Bair's Mill, the Union skirmish line, the line of the Confederate advance through the picturesque George D. Ebert farm, the riverfront and canal, the "heroine of the Susquehanna" feeds breakfast to the Rebels, and the African-American cemetery in neighboring Columbia.

Viewing these videos and reading my book Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863 should give you a good grasp of the strategic importance of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, deemed so important by the Confederate high command that Robert E. Lee sent one of his finest divisions to go take it by force.

This historic marker was installed last year as part of the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails program. It commemorates the efforts by Georgia Confederate soldiers under Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon to extinguish a series of fires in downtown Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, caused by flaming embers from the burning Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. That conflagration occurred on Sunday evening, June 28, 1863, during the Gettysburg Campaign when Union militia set fire to the bridge after crossing it into Lancaster County; their goal was to deny its usage to the Army of Northern Virginia.

As the fire from the massive mile-and-a-quarter long covered bridge spread westward with the prevailing winds from a rainstorm, Wrightsville's citizens and merchants produced buckets, pails, tubs, pitchers, and anything else suitable to carry water up from the Susquehanna River and/or the adjacent Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal. A bucket brigade of Rebel infantrymen helped save individual homes and businesses and helped arrest the fires that were burning out of control in the Westphalia district of Wrightsville and in the industrial section north of Hellam Street.

In this Cannonball blog entry, let's look at just a few of the buildings the Confederates labored to save. Their efforts paid off, as the structures are still intact 146 years after the inferno that destroyed many adjacent or nearby buildings such as the post office, a millinery and store, apartments, houses, a lumberyard, and other factories.

I will be signing copies of Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863 at the annual Wrightsville river festival on Sunday night, June 28, 2009 from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM at the John Wright building on Front Street. This coincides with the actual burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge on Sunday evening, June 28, 1863. The co-author of the well received chapter on the bridge burning, Adjunct Professor Scott L. Mingus, Jr. of Harrisburg Area Community College, will also be signing the books in a special joint appearance.

Stop by and say hello!

Copyright 2007, Scott Mingus and Tom Poston, all rights reserved. Map of the June 28, 1863 skirmish of Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. No reproduction without written permission.

On the late afternoon of Sunday June 28, 1863, more than 1500 Confederate soldiers under Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon of the Army of Northern Virginia marched from York, Pennsylvania, eastward through Hallam to Wrightsville on the river, a distance of some 10-11 miles. Their goal was to seize the mile-and-a-quarter-long covered bridge over the Susquehanna River, a key military target that would allow passage into Lancaster County where several important railroads could be interrupted. Defending the bridge was a motley collection of hastily trained Pennsylvania volunteer militia, invalided veteran soldiers emptied from the beds of the U.S. Army Hospital in York and their guards, a handful of active duty troops from the 87th Pennsylvania who had been badly embarrassed at the Second Battle of Winchester by these same oncoming Georgians, and three small cavalry units, one of which was a parade show group from Philadelphia.

Looking southwesterly toward the fields through which Gordon's Rebels advanced.

Gordon formed the 31st Georgia into battle line in the fields beyond the white farm and slowly advanced the veteran regiment, while two other regiments skirted to the hills north of Wrightsville in a flanking movement and three regiments performed a similar flanking march near Kreutz Creek to the south.

When Debi and I moved to this area in 2001, one of the more familiar aspects of the York-Lancaster region was the Amish and their communities. We lived for two decades in northeastern Ohio, where the Amish population rivals Lancaster County, albeit without the massive tourism and commercialization. The characteristic black, horse-drawn buggies of the Amish are a very common sight in much of Ohio, so we were quite prepared to see them (and drive on the same roads).

During the American Civil War, the Amish and their fellow Anabaptists such as the Mennonites were largely pacifists, preferring to stay away from secular politics and political movements, and the war created by regional differences within the country. Cannonball reader Jonathan Stayer, head of the reference section of the Pennsylvania State Archives, called my attention to a 2007 book that I was previously unaware of, Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War, a treatise that explores the religious minorities of this area. Jonathan wrote, "156 York Countians sought exemption from military service on grounds of conscience in 1862 (conscientious objectors), the sixth highest number in the counties of Pennsylvania. Even tiny Adams County was home to at least 129 conscientious objectors. The reason? Both counties were (and are) home to significant communities of Mennonites and Dunkards (Brethren), and to a lesser extent, Quakers. "

Authors James O. Lehman and Steven M. Nolt have written a fascinating book that examines the Amish and Mennonites of Pennsylvania and other states during the Civil War. Published by Johns Hopkins Press, this book is perhaps the first detailed study of the pacifistic perspective of the local Amish and Mennonite communities. The book is wonderfully written, flows well, and offers fresh information and a new perspective on the home front in the Civil War that is rarely (if ever) covered in other works.

Tom Ryan of the Washington Times has written many articles on the Civil War, including some rather thought provoking and illuminating material on the intelligence networks of both the Confederate and Federal governments during the Gettysburg campaign. Spies were quite active in this area. A Rebel spy named Will Talbot was captured in Gettysburg in the days before the Battle of Gettysburg; he was executed down in Maryland by the Union cavalry. Another spy was picked up near Harrisburg when he was spotted sounding the depth of the Susquehanna River from a rowboat. He was taken to Fort Delaware.

A lot of rumors floated around here in York. A one-armed Bible salesman who went around town peddling the Word supposedly, according to the rumor mill, accompanied the Confederates during the invasion of York. Another man drinking in a York bar claimed to be a member of an Alabama regiment who had been sent into York County at the specific orders of Robert E, Lee; he spent time in the local jail while he sobered up. He wasn't a soldier, just a wino.

Several strangers in Wrightsville were picked up and interrogated by the authorities, and the flood of refugees coming from the west from Adams County only added to the confusion and suspicion, and perhaps a tad of paranoia set in among some locals.

Ironically, the newspaper article shown above is from the Columbia Spy!

Manchester Township author and historian Scott L. Mingus, Sr. will be the featured guest speaker at the March 18, 2009, meeting of the York Civil War Round Table. The meeting is FREE and open to the public, so everyone is welcome! It is at 7:00 PM at the York County Heritage Trust's auditorium at 250 E. Market Street in York (the historic Lincoln Highway).

One of the most strategically important parts of the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign today is virtually unknown to the modern battlefield tramper. In late June, Confederate Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon led a vital expedition through south-central Pennsylvania with a goal of seizing the mile-long Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge over the Susquehanna River. Along the way, Gordon had to deal with hastily recruited and barely trained state emergency militia whose mission was to delay the Rebels for as long as possible and then deny them the use of the river crossing.

Colonel Jacob G. Frick was one of the most prominent citizens of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in Schuylkill County, the heart of the coal-mining region. He was a Medal of Honor winner for gallantry in action during the American Civil War, a wealthy businessman, and a civic-minded family man. Frick spent several days here in York County, Pennsylvania, during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, and his actions in leading the defense of the mile-long covered bridge over the Susquehanna River at Wrightsville significantly influenced the course of the campaign and thwarted the Confederate crossing of the river into Lancaster County.

Often overlooked by historians, Colonel Frick also played important roles in the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, for which he was later awarded the Medal of Honor.

Who was this man?

Dale Gallon is among my favorite Civil War artists. One of the most prolific of the modern generation of ACW artists, Gallon maintains an impressive gallery and retail store in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Steinwehr Avenue. Limited edition art prints of the painting shown above may be purchased there either framed or unframed. Gallon's visually interesting work shows newly appointed Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer in his first battle action after being promoted from captain. His Wolverines of Company E, 6th Michigan Cavalry are armed with 7-shot Spencer Repeating Rifles and are deployed as skirmishers in a lush field near Hanover, in southwestern York County, Pennsylvania. The action depicted is from the afternoon fighting at the June 30, 1863, Battle of Hanover.

Gallon is not the only famous painter to depict York County Civil War subjects.

I am now accepting orders for my latest book, Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863 from Ironclad Publishing. Please see my website for this new book for details and a photo gallery of more than 100 pictures associated with the book and the historical locations and personages featured in Flames Beyond Gettysburg. I accept PayPal, personal checks, and money orders for this book. A portion of the proceeds will go for battlefield preservation efforts.

Copies of the book will be on sale at my upcoming talks at the York CWRT at the York Heritage Trust on March 18 and at the Greater Dover Historical Society on March 19. As soon as I know when my large shipment is coming in, we plan a talk and formal reception at the York Emporium (more details to come once Jim Lewin and I work out the details for this formal introduction of the book, and I am hoping to have some guests lined up for that event).

York has always had strong ties with neighboring Maryland. As I frequently drive down I-83 to the BWI airport, I am reminded of the economic and commercial relationships, and, here in my neightborhood, a number of the homes are owned by transplanted Marylanders.

Those economic and social relationships date to well before the Civil War. During that conflict, for more than a year, the largest military force defending York was a company of infantry from Maryland.

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.