"The Cravens"

(Cannonball) ... Despite the loss of the bridge and several businesses and houses in Wrightsville that burned in the ensuing conflagration, the events did have one favorable outcome: new-found respect for the black volunteers. They had shouldered arms alongside the white soldiers and performed courageously. They had not been among the frightened men who had walked away before the skirmish. Lancaster's Examiner and Herald trumpeted that "the only Columbia volunteers in the fight were fifty-three negros, who after making entrenchments with the soldiers, took muskets and fought bravely."
In his official report, Colonel Jacob Frick praised the excellent conduct of these black civilians. "After working industriously in the rifle-pits all day, when the fight commenced they took their guns and stood up to their work bravely. They fell back only when ordered to do so." Lieutenant Francis Wallace wrote to his Pottsville newspaper on June 30, "All honor to the colored men of Columbia. They will die in defense of life and liberty, which is more than a majority of the whites here seem disposed to do--the cravens." Continued