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By one count, invading Confederate artillerymen lobbed 40 heavy projectiles into sparsely defended Wrightsville in late-June, 1863.
Some of the shot was solid, plowing into buildings like mauls smashing balsa wood.
Other projectiles exploded on impact, hurling shrapnel at anything - or anyone - in range.
One shell struck the town's Presbyterian church, bounced along Locust Street and came to rest in Jacob Freet's house.
Freet may or may not have been home to hear the impact.
Out and about, he spotted Amanda Beaverson crossing a street with her two children.
A shot exploded nearby.
Freet brought her to the safety of a cellar.
During this barrage, women and children huddled in houses throughout Wrightsville.
Later, spreading flames forced them to mingle with the enemy as their rebel captors worked to keep their houses - and the town - from burning.
Union troops had torched the Susquehanna River bridge to keep the invading rebels from advancing
The flames had jumped from bridge to town.
Confusion reigned in Wrightsville.
York County has been hooked into every major war.
Delegates to the Continental Congress and their entourages extracted food, lodging and hospitality from townspeople when all three were in short supply during the American Revolution.
World War II exercised the county's industrial muscle and sent 570 or more of its sons to their graves.
But none spoiled the county's limestone soil quite like the Civil War, when 6,000-plus enemy infantrymen marched across it, from west to east, and 4,500 horsemen rode through its heart, south to north.
Fighting erupted here in the summer of 1863, and men in uniform died.
During that Wrightsville cannonading, a black militiaman dressed in blue was decapitated by a projectile. Another Union soldier died, and nine were wounded.
In Hanover, more than 300 men clad in blue and gray were among the dead, wounded and missing.
Blood literally ran in Hanover's streets.
Fierce fighting inevitably surrounded men, women and children, who did not, or could not, leave for safety.
A historical marker planned this year in Wrightsville will recognize the dangers braved by such women and children.
The sign, to stand along Hellam Street as part of the state's "Prelude to Gettysburg" initiative, is aptly called "Women and Children Under Siege."
In Hanover, women and children were serving hearty breakfasts to weary Union cavalrymen when Confederate troopers smashed into the blue column.
"Please go to (your) homes and into (your) cellars," a Union major shouted. "In a few minutes there will be (more) fighting in your streets."
His warning came too late.
Women and children of Hanover mixed with men in blue and gray battling saber to saber on main and side streets.
One woman, handing out food just seconds before, observed a Union trooper riding toward her. She looked the man in the face as he drew near, acting as if he wanted some cake and pie.
Just then, the trooper wheeled around and dropped from his horse, having taken a bullet from a rebel trooper.
Even when townspeople found refuge in their homes, they were subjected to an artillery duel overhead. Shells passed from blue lines on Bunker Hill northwest of town to gray lines on the ridges south and southeast of Hanover.
And vice versa.
A wounded Union soldier was taken to the home of young Lydia Wertz on Ridge Avenue. The terrified girl was left home alone with the bleeding soldier.
"God bless the ladies of our town," a Hanover newspaper later commented, "and forbid that their nerves ever again be shocked by the roar of cannon, the clashing of steel, or the ghastly visage of the murdered men." In Wrightsville, Mary Jane Rewalt waded through swarming and sweating Confederates who had just saved her father's house from the blaze.
She invited the rebel general, John B. Gordon, for a meal as a thank you.
Over breakfast, Gordon probed the young woman's Southern sympathies.
Staring down a room full of avowed Southerners and high-ranking Confederates, she clarified her position without equivocation.
She was a Union woman, blue and true.
"I must tell you ... that, with my assent and approval, my husband is a soldier in the Union army," she said, "and my constant prayer to Heaven is that our cause may triumph and the Union be saved."
No Confederate, Gordon later wrote, left that room without admiration for the brave Mrs. Rewalt.
James McClure is editor of the York Daily Record/Sunday News. He has written five books on county history and writes a local history blog, www.yorktownsquare.com. To contact him, call 771-2000, or e-mail jem@ ydr.com
Civil War markers
Historical markers are going up in Wrightsville, York, Hanover, Gettysburg and three other communities as part of the "Pennsylvania Civil War Trails: Prelude to Gettysburg" program.
The initiative is designed to present the state's Civil War heritage, particularly in the Pennsylvania Dutch region challenged by enemy troops in the Gettysburg summer of 1863. For details, see http://www.PaCivilWarTrails.com.
Gray cloud
The Confederate shadow covered York County, except for the southeastern corner. Numerous stories have been told about encounters between women and children and rebel invaders.
One example:
Daniel Roland was away at war, leaving his wife, Ellen, to fend for herself and their five children.
Living in a remote area, Ellen Roland figured her family was safer in Emigsville.
On her way, she ran into a band of 20 graycoats.
"Where's your husband? Why are you leaving home? Do you know we will burn down your home sooner, if it were unoccupied than if you lived there?" they asked her. They let her go, and she and her children walked through rebel lines to the safety of friends in town.
- James McClure's
"East of Gettysburg"
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Woman injured
Only one woman is knownto have been wounded in fighting in York County.
As the story goes, Lizzie Sweitzer, domestic for a local pastor, was helping to feed friendly Union troops when the cavalry battle erupted in Hanover.
Before the young woman could find cover, a rifle or pistol ball struck her in the ankle.
After the war, she married and lived in South Dakota. But she visited Hanover in 1898 on a trip east, seeking a military pension for her wound.
She walked with a crutch during her visit.
