On June 28, 1863, Columbians and Pennsylvania State Militia burned their covered wooden bridge across the Susquehanna River, the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, to prevent Confederate troops arriving in Wrightsville from the south from marching on Harrisburg, Lancaster, and onward to Philadelphia. Unable to cross the bridge, the Confederates withdrew and ended up in the little crossroads town of Gettysburg, where divisive battles were fought between the North and South. The stone piers that supported the bridge, running parallel to route 462, can still be seen today and have become the site of the "Flames Across the Susquehanna" bridge-burning reenactments.
