Scott Mingus, a York County, Pennsylvania-based historian with a particular interest in the Civil War era, focuses on what was going on during the war in the Wrightsville area -- the scene of a major turning point in the war that, it seems, a lot of people who don't live in this region don't know about -- in his slim book, Beyond the Burning Bridge: Wrightsville, Pa., in the Civil War.

I'm speaking, of course, of the destruction of the long covered bridge that spanned the Susquehanna River between Wrightsville and Columbia. Left intact, Confederate forces would have marched straight through Lancaster County and likely would have reached Philadelphia unhindered. But, with the bridge destroyed in a mighty conflagration -- which threatened to burn down much of Wrightsville, too, a tragedy prevented by the firefighting efforts of local citizens and the sympathetic Confederate soldiers who aided them -- the Rebel army turned around and went instead to Gettysburg. We all know what happened there.

Mingus, in a book just shy of 80 pages long, describes in detail the preparations to defend Wrightsville against the oncoming Rebel force, as well as plans to blow up a portion of the bridge if the invaders made it to the river. He describes the skirmishes that took place as the Southerners marched into the town and, when the explosion failed to demolish a segment of the bridge, the hasty fire that was built to destroy the entire mile-long bridge. He also tells readers how the wind blew the fire into the town itself, ravaging numerous homes and businesses until it could be extinguished, and how the town rebuilt itself in the months that followed.

He also provides information on Wrightsville men who served in the Union army, including their fates in the war.

While Beyond the Burning Bridge will mostly appeal to history buffs from the Wrightsville region, Civil War enthusiasts in general will enjoy Mingus's depiction of how one small town was affected by the four-year conflict -- and, in one pivotal event, greatly influenced the outcome of the war.

[ visit Scott Mingus's Civil War blog ]