M.A. Kleen

After capturing York, Pennsylvania the morning of June 28, 1863, Confederate Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon moved northeast to seize the Susquehanna River bridge in Wrightsville. Standing between his 2,113 Confederates and the bridge were approximately 1,461 untrained Pennsylvania militia, organized into the 27th, 20th, and 26th regiments, including 53 free blacks who volunteered to fight. Gordon’s Confederates arrived outside Wrightsville late in the afternoon and saw the Pennsylvania militia arrayed in a semi-circle behind hastily dug earthworks. Unbeknownst to Gordon, they had prepared the bridge with oil and explosives. They were not, however, prepared to fight. The inexperienced soldiers fired a few rounds, then fled when Confederate cannonballs crashed into their lines. Union casualties numbered one killed, nine wounded, and 20 taken prisoner in the brief skirmish, while the Confederates suffered one wounded. The Pennsylvania militia fled across the bridge and set it on fire, denying its use to the enemy. When the fire spread into town, Gordon’s soldiers pitched in to help save it from destruction.