YORK, Pa. –  The mud of a south-central Pennsylvania cornfield may soon produce answers about the fate of British prisoners of war -- and the newly independent Americans who guarded them -- during the waning years of the American Revolution.

A few miles east of York, the city that briefly served as the fledgling nation's capital after the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, more than a thousand English, Scottish and Canadian soldiers were imprisoned at what was then known as Camp Security.

The fight to preserve the plot where those soldiers and their captors worked and lived has lasted almost twice as long as the Revolutionary War itself. And the end is in sight -- if its backers can raise the last few hundred thousand dollars needed to pay for it....