Civil War Ghosts
- Thread starter Hezekiah
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We visited Gettysburg when I was three, 1956...parents and I...
Parents had no interest in the unCivil War, had said nothing about it then or much ever after...but, we stopped by regardless.
According to them, and from what I remember also, all I did was sit on the ground and cry.
I had been in a good mood before that, and I was not a crier anyway, so this was very unusual for me to do.
But, that was it, I just sat on the ground and started crying, and would not stop.
After a little while, parents and I walk to the gift shop...I stopped crying, I wanted my dad to buy me a Confederate Flag, which he did...and, we left.
All I remember about it, is something very profound and sad, something inconsolable, was overwhelming me.
And, instinct or memory somehow, led me to just stand there staring at the little Confederate Flags on Sticks for sale, and, to then ask my dad to get one for me.
You bet those places are 'Haunted', and well they should be.
4/5ths of our Nation's Heart was lost there, and, never did grow back.
Oye...
Parents had no interest in the unCivil War, had said nothing about it then or much ever after...but, we stopped by regardless.
According to them, and from what I remember also, all I did was sit on the ground and cry.
I had been in a good mood before that, and I was not a crier anyway, so this was very unusual for me to do.
But, that was it, I just sat on the ground and started crying, and would not stop.
After a little while, parents and I walk to the gift shop...I stopped crying, I wanted my dad to buy me a Confederate Flag, which he did...and, we left.
All I remember about it, is something very profound and sad, something inconsolable, was overwhelming me.
And, instinct or memory somehow, led me to just stand there staring at the little Confederate Flags on Sticks for sale, and, to then ask my dad to get one for me.
You bet those places are 'Haunted', and well they should be.
4/5ths of our Nation's Heart was lost there, and, never did grow back.
Oye...
Man, that is pretty powerful. I live in Yorktown, and have felt that before walking around the battlefields. A buddy of mine who I trust implicitly, told me that when he was reenacting in Fredricksburg, they saw soldiers walking at night, checked them out and they disappeared. Definitely checking the show out!
There's definitely something haunting about walking around Civil War battlefields, as I've done a few times, when you think about the fact that you are walking on the same ground that thousands of soldiers walked on, fought on, and died on. I often get a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye when the realization hits me.
Thanks for the heads-up. DirecTV is re-broadcasting the Gettysburg program at 1:00am (Eastern) for those who TeVo.
The County I live in deployed over 600 men to fight in the Civil War. Less than 50 returned alive. The farm I live on belonged to one of the survivors. He died in his 90's and is buried in a Church cemetery less than a half-mile from where I sit. His tombstone reads: "Served Four years in the War of 1860".
Les
The County I live in deployed over 600 men to fight in the Civil War. Less than 50 returned alive. The farm I live on belonged to one of the survivors. He died in his 90's and is buried in a Church cemetery less than a half-mile from where I sit. His tombstone reads: "Served Four years in the War of 1860".
Les
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Guncollector1982
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- Jun 21, 2010
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I enjoy the program when i catch it which is far and few... The old battlegrounds are humbling.. We dont have civil war battlefields here in montana but the indian war massacres/battlefields around me have the same effect on ones mood....There was a bar built on a indian camp that was wiped out near here before my time here they say ash trays randomly shot across the bar the locals kinda got used to it lol.
jimmyraythomason
Member
I live on the Forrest-Streight Skirmish trail. When General Nathan Bedford Forrest was pursuing Union Colonel Abel Streight and his "Lightning Mule Brigade" across Alabama they passed through here,even battling at Royal,Al. just a mile or so from here. I have cousins who live in Paulding County,Ga. near Atlanta who regularly pick up minnie balls from their yards and fields. Most folks around here can name their ancestors who fought against the invaders,where they lived(and Died) where they are buried and who their spouses and children were.
KodiakBeer
member
Civil War history - love it! Does anybody know where the last shot of the civil war was fired?
Alaska. Yup. The raider Shenandoah sailed into the Bering Sea and sank 20 Yankee whalers (and captured another 24) in June of 1865. The war was over, but nobody knew it so hostilities didn't cease until CSS Shenandoah captured a recently arrived whaler with a San Francisco newspaper detailing the surrender.
Alaska. Yup. The raider Shenandoah sailed into the Bering Sea and sank 20 Yankee whalers (and captured another 24) in June of 1865. The war was over, but nobody knew it so hostilities didn't cease until CSS Shenandoah captured a recently arrived whaler with a San Francisco newspaper detailing the surrender.
Shotgun Willy
Member
Uhm, Kodiak, the final shot hasn't been fired, yet, because it's only halftime.
robert garner
Member
^+1
Tommygunn
Member
Shotgun Willy said:
Given the direction our govts. going in, halftime's 'bout over!
I don't beleive in ghosts, hauntings, spirits, or the super natural. However, I was at the Civil War Battlefield at Perryville,Ky a few years ago as the sun was going down. Something made the hair on the back ot my neck stand up and my skin started crawlng on my back. It was like a sense of power, fear, and sadness. Can't explain what it was, but it was real and it was unpleasent.
As with Ky Larry, I am sceptical re ghosts and other such beasties. I must admit however that I felt a sense of what I can only call "presence" on the battlefield of Culloden.
Possible these feeling were simply due to the environment and knowledge of what had happened there. As I had ancestors on both sides I was pretty impartial as to the outcome, but the cairns marking the clan graves do project a feeling that I cannot describe.
Possible these feeling were simply due to the environment and knowledge of what had happened there. As I had ancestors on both sides I was pretty impartial as to the outcome, but the cairns marking the clan graves do project a feeling that I cannot describe.
SC_Slowhand
Member
Presence
Well Put Duncan.
I took a boat ride out to Ft. Sumter, in Charleston, SC there loads of "presence" out there in the harbor, imagining what it must have been like when those cannon opened up.
I made it to Waterloo and some of those old WWI Battlefields in France as well. Taking a walk on the beaches at Normandy at day break can invoke that same sense but you have to have an appreciation for the reality of history to really "get it". Mostly it's a sense of loss.
Well Put Duncan.
I took a boat ride out to Ft. Sumter, in Charleston, SC there loads of "presence" out there in the harbor, imagining what it must have been like when those cannon opened up.
I made it to Waterloo and some of those old WWI Battlefields in France as well. Taking a walk on the beaches at Normandy at day break can invoke that same sense but you have to have an appreciation for the reality of history to really "get it".
Mostly it's a sense of loss.Black Toe Knives
Member
When you walk with ghost, I have at Waverly Hills in Louisville, KY. You actually see the shadows of the dead. You sudden become a believer. I have been in a graveyard where I have seen Pinwheels spin over children graves. Where you you can drop dead grass and it fall straight to the ground. I told my Friend, the only way I will believe if the pinwheels stop. They stopped on cue and started right back up. Just say I believe.
I think anyplace where there is a lot of untimely death you will experience spirits.
I think anyplace where there is a lot of untimely death you will experience spirits.
I think it's the sense of what happened at these battlefields that, if you give it a chance, can overwhelm you and can bring up "ghosts". At Pea Ridge, my wife was unimpressed and ready to move on after a few minutes. Me, I was watching shadows of soldiers running through the trees on the big bluff where the Rebel retreat occurred. I agree that these places retain an atmosphere of great tragedy that is almost palpable to those who are "in the know".
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I've never been to a battle field but will be doing a grand tour over the next few years. For those that don't know the 150th annaversery of the war starts in april. So far my group is doin manasas next year shiloh the year after and gettysburg the next but as for 64 and 65 I don't know what battles well go to. I'm excited to walk the battlefeilds at night and feel this presence while decked out in my confederate greys. I'm sure it will be somethin ill take with me for the rest of my life
Gambit
Gambit
WALKERs210
Member
I have always been the type that requires hard core evidence before I believe in anything. Anything and everything can be explained if you take away rumors, and I know someone that knew someone that said they heard that their cousin saw this or that. Back in the early 90's while I was driving 18 wheelers I have been on the east and west side of Gettysburg. Finally one day I had to go straight through the town and some of the battle field area. Well all my "SHOW ME PROOF" went right out the window, I have never in my life experience such feelings of sadness, fright, and loss. I have always wanted to go back and spend a few days there if for no other reason just to pay respect to all the people that gave their life for their cause.
ofitg
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I think it's fair to say that different people experience it in various ways..... and different people experience it to varying extents...... some people don't experience it at all.
But it is real. If you're looking for scientific evidence the book, The Afterlife Experiments by Gary Schwartz, is a good read.
But it is real. If you're looking for scientific evidence the book, The Afterlife Experiments by Gary Schwartz, is a good read.
BHP FAN
Member
There's something to it.I've traveled Europe and the Middle East, on my own dime [well, Grandma's anyhow] and Uncle Sam's, and stood on castle's ramparts and battlefields both ancient and recent, been in the Catacombs and you feel.....something. Ancestral memorys? Ghosts? Echos of the past, recorded as ''images''? I don't pretend to know what it is, but if you don't feel it, or ''hear'' it you're spiritually deaf and blind.
CajunBass
Member
My wife is a yankee, who knew little to nothing about the war before moving south, and marrying me. (I grew up on the battlefields at Gaines Mill and Cold Harbor.) One day we visited Appomattox and the surrounding area. We stopped at Sayler's/Sailors Creek. My wife, who has always claimed to be sensitive to ghosts and such, asked as we got out of the car..."What happened here?" As we walked off across the parking lot and I explained to her what had occured there, she began to cry...then to sob... big, sad, gut wrenching sobs, I mean. She said "We've got to leave...this is the saddest place I have ever been in my life. I cannot stay here." We left, and she apologized over and over..."I don't know what came over me back there. I just couldn't stop crying. There was this overwhelming sense of sadness and loss."
I've got to go to work now. Remind me to tell you boys and girls about Fort Darling and "Elizabeth" sometime.
I've got to go to work now. Remind me to tell you boys and girls about Fort Darling and "Elizabeth" sometime.
rocky branch
Member
Don't believe in the paranormal-dead is gone.
I think the environment at those places ith all the markers and just being there can work on the senses of some folks.
Some places in Europe where there are major historical sites and museums report a strange phenomena.
Tourists, usually Americans, are sometimes found sitting or wandering around in a daze.
They are simply overwhelmed at the exposure to such significant stuff.
No spooks involved.
They usuallly recover quickly after some rest.
I have known a lot of people who tend to live through the experiences of others who are extremely impressionable.
They are good candidates to decide they have seen the boogieman.
I think the environment at those places ith all the markers and just being there can work on the senses of some folks.
Some places in Europe where there are major historical sites and museums report a strange phenomena.
Tourists, usually Americans, are sometimes found sitting or wandering around in a daze.
They are simply overwhelmed at the exposure to such significant stuff.
No spooks involved.
They usuallly recover quickly after some rest.
I have known a lot of people who tend to live through the experiences of others who are extremely impressionable.
They are good candidates to decide they have seen the boogieman.
Cap n Ball
Member
Even if you didn't know what it was a walk down the sunken road at Antiam is disturbing. I've been reenacting and doing living history for quite a while now and there are places that are charged with something at every site. It's not scary but very sad and lonely.
BHP FAN
Member
that's a good way to put it.
KodiakBeer
member
Not the Civil War, but another American war...
I spent a year on remote Attu Island living right on the battlefield, exploring the battlefield, fishing and hunting on the battlefield. There's plenty of ptarmigan and the winding creeks hold good red salmon runs. Foxes follow you and try to beg food or just play with you - I could never bring myself to shoot one. The island is just as it was when the battle ended - untouched. There are no people on the island except for a few lonely coasties. The inhabitants were shipped off to Japanese slave camps and never returned. Their homes are now just piles of rotting lumber.
You can walk up the miles of massacre valley and still see the holes in the mountainsides on each side of you, and know there were Japanese field guns and machine guns overlooking every square inch of the muddy tundra. The ground is littered with all the junk of war - rusty mess kits, ammo boxes, brass, field guns, rusty helmets. I picked up an American helmet with a bullet hole dead center above the eyes - sniper probably - I placed it back where I found it.
I found a rusty loaded 1911 magazine and each slug had the cap carefully carved off to turn them into "soft points". GI's had been detailed to crawl into the Japanese emplacements dug into the hills and clear them and this mag was found on the hillside near such an emplacement. This GI hadn't been too concerned about the rules of war, but then neither had the enemy.
Engineer hill is where the Japanese raided the hospital and butchered all the patients. You can still trace out the little berms that surrounded the tents. Inside each one is a collection of junk - rusty cabinets and parts of wood frame cots. And spent brass, lots of spent brass - 30.06 mostly.
I never saw a ghost or sensed a "presence". There is sadness because you know what happened there.
There is also a lot of anger and disgust and even hatred, especially when you see the site of the old field hospital and the village. People lived there in that village for thousands of years. Americans - Aleuts - in an idyllic world, the women growing potatoes and cabbage while the men fished and hunted. They pickled, salted and smoked food all summer. They sold fox and sea otter pelts for cash money and then hunkered down for another winter.
All of that ended when then the Japanese came and executed the only white man in the village (the school teacher) and shipped every other soul off to a slave labor camp (an abandoned coal mine on Hokkaido), to die of malnutrition and TB. Imagine starving, dying children forced to dig coal at the point of a bayonet...
Anyway, I didn't see any ghosts on Attu. If they are present, they keep a low profile. Perhaps they are lying in the muddy tundra, still keeping their heads down.
I spent a year on remote Attu Island living right on the battlefield, exploring the battlefield, fishing and hunting on the battlefield. There's plenty of ptarmigan and the winding creeks hold good red salmon runs. Foxes follow you and try to beg food or just play with you - I could never bring myself to shoot one. The island is just as it was when the battle ended - untouched. There are no people on the island except for a few lonely coasties. The inhabitants were shipped off to Japanese slave camps and never returned. Their homes are now just piles of rotting lumber.
You can walk up the miles of massacre valley and still see the holes in the mountainsides on each side of you, and know there were Japanese field guns and machine guns overlooking every square inch of the muddy tundra. The ground is littered with all the junk of war - rusty mess kits, ammo boxes, brass, field guns, rusty helmets. I picked up an American helmet with a bullet hole dead center above the eyes - sniper probably - I placed it back where I found it.
I found a rusty loaded 1911 magazine and each slug had the cap carefully carved off to turn them into "soft points". GI's had been detailed to crawl into the Japanese emplacements dug into the hills and clear them and this mag was found on the hillside near such an emplacement. This GI hadn't been too concerned about the rules of war, but then neither had the enemy.
Engineer hill is where the Japanese raided the hospital and butchered all the patients. You can still trace out the little berms that surrounded the tents. Inside each one is a collection of junk - rusty cabinets and parts of wood frame cots. And spent brass, lots of spent brass - 30.06 mostly.
I never saw a ghost or sensed a "presence". There is sadness because you know what happened there.
There is also a lot of anger and disgust and even hatred, especially when you see the site of the old field hospital and the village. People lived there in that village for thousands of years. Americans - Aleuts - in an idyllic world, the women growing potatoes and cabbage while the men fished and hunted. They pickled, salted and smoked food all summer. They sold fox and sea otter pelts for cash money and then hunkered down for another winter.
All of that ended when then the Japanese came and executed the only white man in the village (the school teacher) and shipped every other soul off to a slave labor camp (an abandoned coal mine on Hokkaido), to die of malnutrition and TB. Imagine starving, dying children forced to dig coal at the point of a bayonet...
Anyway, I didn't see any ghosts on Attu. If they are present, they keep a low profile. Perhaps they are lying in the muddy tundra, still keeping their heads down.
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