BUY Rebel Flags For SaleNot every Civil War story comes from a soldier. In July 1938, as aging veterans of the Blue and the Gray gathered at Gettysburg one last time, a 92-year-old Pennsylvania woman named Emily Brenneman told a newspaper what she remembered of a Sunday in June 1863: baking bread and brewing coffee for hungry militiamen, and a can of gunpowder hidden under her family’s back porch. That powder was carried to the great covered bridge over the Susquehanna River, which was set on fire to keep General John B. Gordon’s Georgia brigade from crossing. Her memory opens a window on one of the most dramatic days of the Gettysburg Campaign, and on an act of Southern chivalry that the people of Wrightsville never forgot.
Lee Moves North
In June 1863, fresh from his victory at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s Second Corps spread across the south-central part of the state, gathering supplies and threatening the capital at Harrisburg. On Sunday, June 28, Major General Jubal Early’s division occupied the town of York.
Early sent Brigadier General John B. Gordon and his brigade of Georgians, the 13th, 26th, 31st, 38th, 60th and 61st Georgia regiments, about 1,800 men in all, ten miles east to Wrightsville on the west bank of the Susquehanna. Their target was the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, a covered bridge more than a mile long, 5,620 feet from end to end, carrying a roadway, railroad tracks and canal towpaths across the river to Columbia in Lancaster County. If Gordon could seize it, the Confederates would have a road to Lancaster and the rear of Harrisburg.
The Defense of Wrightsville
Waiting for Gordon was a hastily gathered force under Colonel Jacob G. Frick, made up of the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia, several companies of local volunteers from Columbia, convalescent Union soldiers, and a company of 53 African American men from Columbia who dug trenches and then took up arms beside the militia. Gordon later reported that a captured Union officer put the defenders’ strength at about 1,200, “strongly intrenched, but without artillery.”
The fight on the afternoon of June 28 was short. Gordon’s veterans swept toward the town and around its flanks, and the inexperienced militia fell back across the bridge to Columbia. Gordon reported taking about 20 prisoners, including a lieutenant colonel, while losing only one man wounded.
Setting the Bridge on Fire
The Federals had prepared for this moment. Workers had cut into the timbers of one of the bridge’s spans and packed holes with gunpowder, planning to drop it into the river once the defenders were safely across. When the charge was set off, it failed to bring the span down. With the Confederates close behind, Frick ordered the bridge burned instead. Men soaked boards and shavings with coal oil and kerosene, lit the span and ran. Among those who set the fire was Jacob Miller, an older Black man from Columbia who had stayed at his post as the Confederates approached.
The great wooden bridge burned through the night, a sheet of flame visible for miles along the river. Gordon’s men tried to save it, but they could find few buckets in the abandoned town, and by morning the span lay in the Susquehanna.
Gordon’s Georgians Save Wrightsville
The wind carried sparks and burning debris from the bridge into Wrightsville, and soon houses, a lumber yard and other buildings along the riverfront were on fire. What happened next became one of the most remembered episodes of the campaign. Gordon formed his soldiers into bucket lines, and townspeople who had hidden their pails from the invaders brought them out. In his official report, Gordon wrote that his brigade surrounded the burning buildings and “resisted the progress of the flames until they were checked.” Dozens of buildings were damaged, but the town was saved.
The next morning a Wrightsville woman named Mary Jane Rewalt, whose husband was serving in the Union army, invited Gordon and his officers to breakfast to thank them for saving her home. She told him plainly that she prayed for a Union victory. Gordon was deeply moved by her gratitude and her honesty, and in his later writings and lectures he spoke of her with great respect, reportedly calling her the “heroine of the Susquehanna.”
Wrightsville marked the farthest east that the Confederate army advanced in Pennsylvania. With the bridge gone, Gordon’s brigade rejoined Early at York, and on June 30 the division marched west toward Gettysburg. On July 1 Gordon’s Georgians struck the Union Eleventh Corps at Barlow’s Knoll north of town and helped drive it back through Gettysburg, but the brigade paid heavily in the days that followed.
Emily Brenneman’s Story
On the Columbia side of the river, the Brenneman family lived on Locust Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets. Emily was a teenager in 1863. On July 7, 1938, the York Gazette and Daily published her recollections, gathered as the area remembered the 75th anniversary of the bridge burning and the great reunion at Gettysburg.
According to her account, the family had hidden a can of gunpowder and a bundle of fuses under the back porch. Near dusk that Sunday, her father, who later became Columbia’s chief burgess, and a man named Wesley Upp carried the powder to the bridge, where it was used in the effort to destroy it. Emily herself spent the day in the kitchen. She sliced big loaves of homemade bread, brought crocks of preserves down from the attic, kept the stove burning and brewed gallons of coffee while her mother and sisters cooked for the soldiers passing through. When the bridge went up in flames she tried to push through the crowds to see it, but could not get close and went back to feeding the troops.
She also passed on what the older people of Wrightsville said about the Confederates: that they had not destroyed the town, and in fact had helped save it from the fire.
The Last Reunion at Gettysburg, 1938
Emily Brenneman’s memories were stirred by the last great reunion of Civil War veterans. From June 29 to early July 1938, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the federal government hosted a 75th anniversary encampment at Gettysburg. About 1,845 veterans attended, roughly 1,359 who had worn the blue and 486 who had worn the gray, with an average age of about 94. Boy Scouts helped care for them, and thousands of visitors came to shake their hands.
On July 3, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Eternal Light Peace Memorial on Oak Hill before a crowd estimated at a quarter of a million people. It was the final time that large numbers of the old soldiers of North and South stood together on the field where they had once fought.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was the Wrightsville bridge burned in 1863?
Union militia burned the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge on June 28, 1863, to keep General John B. Gordon’s Confederate brigade from crossing the Susquehanna River into Lancaster County and toward the rear of Harrisburg.
How long was the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge?
The covered bridge was 5,620 feet long, more than a mile, and carried a roadway, railroad tracks and canal towpaths across the Susquehanna.
Did Confederate soldiers save Wrightsville from burning?
Yes. When sparks from the burning bridge set the town on fire, Gordon’s Georgia soldiers formed bucket lines and helped townspeople put out the flames, as Gordon described in his official report.
How far east did the Confederates get in Pennsylvania?
Wrightsville, on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in York County, was the farthest east the Confederate army advanced in Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg Campaign.
Who was Emily Brenneman?
She was a Columbia, Pennsylvania, woman who as a teenager helped feed Union militia during the 1863 bridge burning. In 1938, at age 92, she recalled that her family’s hidden gunpowder was carried to the bridge.
How many veterans attended the 1938 Gettysburg reunion?
About 1,845 Union and Confederate veterans attended the 75th anniversary reunion in 1938. Their average age was about 94.
Remember the Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign is full of stories of courage and decency on both sides. Read more in Rebel Doctor Years Later Repaid York Farmer for Horse Taken in Gettysburg Campaign and Mercy at Gettysburg. You can honor Gordon’s Georgians and the Army of Northern Virginia with our Confederate Infantry Battle Flag or the Confederate 2nd National Flag, the “Stainless Banner” adopted in May 1863.
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