Battlefields and Historic Sites
It's not surprising that many battlefields are believed to be haunted. The trauma and pain associated with such sites may linger as psychic echoes throughout eternity. Battlefields are notorious for paranormal phenomena.
Gettysburg
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in America — and with very good reason. From July 1 to 3, 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought each other in one of the most ferocious battles of the Civil War.
Gettysburg was the bloodiest single battle of the Civil War, not counting the 1864 Wilderness and Spotsylvania campaigns as a single battle. The number of killed, wounded, and missing in the two armies combined was 51,000 men. Gettysburg is often considered the turning point of the war.
As the battle raged, Confederate sharpshooters took aim from the attic of a rambling farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Today, the Farnsworth House Inn is a bed and breakfast where guests can study the bullet holes that cover the south wall. On that side of the house, many guests have reported seeing an apparition of a wounded Union soldier at the end of a bed. One woman reported that her infant was lifted by unseen hands and gently placed back down in the crib. Tourists taking pictures around or in the house have been startled when the photographs show transparent figures of men wearing Civil War-era uniforms. One visitor even claimed to have seen Confederate general Robert E. Lee sitting atop his famous grey horse, Traveller.
Residents of Gettysburg mention that during strolls across the battlefield on warm summer nights, it's not unusual to encounter hot spots. It's also common to hear gunshots, screams, and bugle calls.
During the filming of the movie Gettysburg, Civil War re-enactors were recruited as extras. While in uniform, one group of men found themselves confronted by a haggard old man, dressed as a Union private. The man smelled strongly of sulfur, a key ingredient of the black powder used in 1863. He handed them a few musket rounds and said, “Rough one today, eh, boys?” Then he turned and walked away into the shrubbery. When the re-enactors brought the rounds into town, local experts authenticated them as original rounds, more than 130 years old.
Built in 1838, Pennsylvania Hall is the central administrative hub and oldest building on the campus of Gettysburg College. In the 1960s, two college administrators rode their building's elevator down to the basement. When the doors opened, they saw a room filled with wounded soldiers and doctors performing amputations. The doctor looked up at the women and beckoned to them. Instead, they punched the buttons to bring the elevator back up to the first floor.
Old Green Eyes
Like Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Georgia, is haunted by the spirits of Civil War soldiers, but this battlefield is unique in that it is haunted by an entity that does not really fit the definition of a ghost. Known as Old Green Eyes, this entity is described as a large creature with fanglike teeth, a hairy body, and burning green eyes. The figure walks on two legs and perhaps wears a cloak. Over the years, thousands have claimed to have seen him prowling about at dusk. Some say the first sighting predates or dates back to the time of the battle of Chickamauga itself, which took place in September 1863.
A number of stories about the origin of Old Green Eyes have been put forth over the decades. The most common is a Native American legend about such a creature that roamed the area long ago, scavenging from the Indian villages. If true, this sounds remarkably like a Sasquatch.
According to some legends, both Confederate and Union soldiers actually saw the creature creeping through the area just after the battle, carrying away dead bodies. Others claim that Old Green Eyes is the ghost of a soldier whose head was blown off by a cannon and whose body was destroyed. According to this legend, the soldier's head drifts about the battlefield, searching for its body.
Although it is not a battlefield, the USS North Carolina saw its share of the horrors of war. The ship served in every major Pacific battle during World War II. Witnesses have reported seeing a young blond sailor in the passageways. Hatches close and open by themselves and there are areas of the ship that are always cold, even in high summer.
Fort Fear
Dale Kaczmarek, the director of the Ghost Research Society (GRS), claims there are more than 100 haunted hot spots in the greater Chicago area. The GRS and independent psychic investigators of the Chicago area know their city is home to just about every kind of apparition and phenomenon imaginable, from sightings of ghost ships on Lake Michigan to singing entities.
One of their most famous “haunt spots” is a Chicago landmark, Fort Sheridan, located north of the city and known to the locals as Fort Fear. Built along an Indian trail connecting it to Green Bay, Wisconsin, Fort Sheridan was originally a French trading post and mission established around 1670.
By the early twentieth century, the fort was all but abandoned and had fallen into disrepair. But for many years afterward, sightings of a lady in an orange dress were reported. Seen during random sunrises around the former officer's mess hall, the lady was rumored to resemble Mamie Eisenhower.
The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, is a reputed to be hotbed of paranormal activity. During the legendary siege of 1836, 1,600 Mexican soldiers and 200 Texan defenders were killed. Witnesses have glimpsed apparitions of small children in the area of the Alamo's gift shop and seen men in nineteenth-century garb marching across the courtyard.
The Rosewell Ghost
Elizabeth Bissette, a writer, musician, and reluctant psychic, found herself walking through the echoes of a long-gone American family when she visited the Rosewell estate in Gloucester County, Virginia. Constructed in 1725 by Mann Page, Rosewell was the ancestral home of the Page family for more than 100 years. John Page, grandson of the builder, was a schoolmate of Thomas Jefferson. In 1916, a fire swept through the mansion, gutting it and leaving only a magnificent shell, which remained a haunting testament to eighteenth-century craftsmanship and dreams.
Elizabeth Bissette's photo taken at Rosewell. He really doesn't look much like Thomas Jefferson.
Photo copyright Elizabeth Bissette, 2007.
Legends and lore associated with the estate were passed down from generation to generation, written in journals or whispered around fireplaces. Supposedly, Mann Page expired in the grand front hall of the mansion, and the bishop of Virginia proclaimed that God had struck him down for his excesses. Another rumor is that Mann died because he was cursed by the spirit of Powhatan for building the mansion on the site of Werewocomoco, the chief's village.
Tales of hauntings on the Rosewell grounds cover a broad spectrum, from full-body apparitions to moans. Vintage automobiles have even been sighted. It was into this atmosphere that Elizabeth Bissette, a distant relation of the Pages', turned onto the long plantation road that led to the shell of the mansion.
Parking near the family cemetery, she and a friend wandered the grounds, taking pictures. Nothing untoward happened, except that their car stalled on their way out. “The next day,” Bissette said, “I started thinking that there was a good chance the photos wouldn't turn out, because we hadn't been able to get any light.” She and her friend decided to return at twilight.
“So, we got there,” she continued, “and I'm taking pictures and we're standing around talking and I swear I saw behind [my companion] a man in colonial dress with his hair back in a ponytail. Young, smiling. He winked at me and put his finger to his lips, pointing to my friend. He looked so real, I thought he was a re-enactor, that maybe they'd had an event there that day and he was messing with me and wanted to play a joke on my friend. That is, until he disappeared.”
Rather than explain the inexplicable to her companion, Bissette replied jokingly that she had just seen Thomas Jefferson and that she wished he had brought his violin.
