LONG SHADOWS: More Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War
Colonel Elmer E Ellsworth was a personal friend of Lincoln’s and leader of the elite New York “Fire” Zouaves. Courtesy of the National Gallery
In Chapter 31 of Dixie Spirits, we investigated the Custis-Lee Mansion, also known as Arlington House, which still stands near Alexandria, Virginia, but we did not explore the other many ghosts and haunts of Alexandria proper. Today let’s take a quick look at a famous Civil War ghost down in town.
They say the first casualty of war is the truth. That may well be true, but in the early days of the war, neither side was much concerned with truth and far more with justifying their own actions, as well as portraying the opposite side as the aggressor. By the time that Lincoln was inaugurated, the time for rational discussion passed and the “better angels” had all gone to hell. The Secessionists moved quickly to surround Washington, DC in the weeks following Lincoln’s installation as President.
Lincoln could call for 75,000 troops—but actually organizing, equipping and fielding them to defend the capitol was quite another thing.
The original zouaves were Algerians, recruited by the French to serve in their army. Their elan in battle became legendary and many “zouave” regiments were formed during the Civil War in emulation of them.
Before the war, volunteer militia units were all the rage in America. In the antebellum era it was fun to be a soldier and many volunteer groups donned colorful costumes, learned to drill like real soldiers and, above all, attract young ladies with their displays of manly martial virtue. Some militia groups developed a reputation for their skill at close order drill and toured the country performing for the public, especially those units who fashioned themselves as zouaves. The original zouaves had been recruited by the French in Algeria and wore colorful oriental style uniforms, but over the years their ethnic makeup was of less importance than their legendary reputation for élan and aggressiveness in battle.
Recruiting for a Zouave regiment, NYC in 1861. While considered elite units, the zouaves could also be quite rowdy when not in combat.
One of the more famous such show units was Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth’s Cadet Zouaves, originally based out of Chicago. Although he was never able to get into West Point, Ellsworth had studied military tactics with a passion and his fencing instructor in Chicago had been an actual French zouave. Ellsworth was a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln’s, so when the call went out for volunteers to suppress the rebellion, Ellsworth wasted no time recruiting a regiment. He went to New York City, sent out a call, seeking out firemen in particular, and within an amazingly brief time received more than double the number of volunteers he needed. Although rough around the edges and short on discipline, the 11th NY “Fire” Zouaves were shipped south in short order.
The Marshall House as it looked early in the War. Note the tall flagpole on the roof of the building. Its owner was a brutal slave owner and fire-breathing Secessionist.
When, on May 23, 1861 Virginia officially seceded from the Union, Ellsworth’s regiment was ordered across the Potomac to secure Alexandria and Arlington Heights on the Virginia side of the river. While securing the city, Ellsworth noticed that a Rebel flag was flying defiantly over the Marshall House, a local inn.
The flag had been something of a sore point for weeks, being visible from across the river and symbol of Lincoln’s inability to preserve the Union even within sight of the capital. Not willing to allow this act of defiance to go unanswered, Ellsworth personally climbed up to the top of the Marshall House and tore down the offending flag from the large flagpole on the roof.
As Colonel Ellsworth was descending the stairs, however, the hotel owner, one James Jackson, appeared without warning and murdered Ellsworth with a shotgun at close quarters. Jackson was immediately rewarded for this action with his own death at the hands of Ellsworth’s men.
It was still early in the war and the death of a single officer, especially a celebrity such as Ellsworth, was still notable news in the North. Ellsworth being a close associate of Lincoln amplified the importance of his death. Soon throughout the North, Ellsworth was hailed as a martyr to the cause of preserving the Union.
The murder of Colonel Ellsworth. His ghost was sighted in the Marshall House on repeated occasions over the years.
In the ensuing months and years following his death, rumors began to circulate that, although dead, Colonel Ellsworth was not really gone from the Marshall House. Some claimed to see him removing the Rebel flag from the rooftop of the hotel, others swore they saw his shade on the stairs where he was murdered.
It was also reported that the ghost of the murderer Secessionist James Jackson, haunted the same stairwell in the old inn. The old Marshall House and its resident ghosts stood unmolested on the same spot until the 1950’s, when old hotel was torn down as part of a modernization trend in the city. Normally, that would be the end of the story, but in this case apparently it is not.
The Alexandrian Hotel, is a modern “boutique hotel,” which occupies the exact same space where the old inn long had stood. It has all the amenities one expects in a modern hotel, plus one more: it is also haunted.
Apparently in replacing the old with the new, no one informed the spectral residents of the property of the change. There are those who claim that the ghosts that haunt the Alexandrian are the same restless shades of the Civil War who roamed the old hotel.
Most times nothing is actually seen; but people who have stayed at the new boo-tique hotel claim to hear the sound of gunshots out in the hallways, as if the Rebel hotel owner and the zouaves who killed him are still having it out in the new building.
On one occasion recently, a couple was riding the elevator when it unexpectedly opened at the fourth floor. No guests were there on the floor, but the couple saw a glowing light appear on the wall opposite, then disappear. Later, these visitors found they were not alone in having uncanny experiences there.
Some visitors allege the modern hotel on the site of the old Marshall still holds the ghost of Ellsworth and perhaps of his murderer.
According to some, it is the hotel’s sixth floor that is most haunted. This could be a spectral reflection of Ellsworth’s flag-taking venture, although reports are vague on that score.
Regardless, the hotel embraces the site’s haunted heritage; in the past it has offered a “Ghosts of Alexandria Family Package” which includes discounted room rate, a stay on the “haunted sixth” plus tickets for the local ghost tour of the town. As is the case with any hotel that is allegedly haunted, check to see whether they still offer that package since it has changed management.
In any case, Alexandria and nearby DC are chock full of Civil War era ghosts and haunts, and who knows maybe Colonel Ellsworth will still put in a personal appearance for visitors.
For more Civil War ghosts see: Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War and for more on General Lee’s Arlington ghosts, plus other famous Southern ghosts, go to Dixie Spirits. Happy haunting y’all.
Dixie Spirits: true tales of the Strange and Supernatural south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
LONG SHADOWS: More Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War
Some say this late war photo of Lincoln is the image of a man who has had a vision of his own funeral.
On Good Friday in April of 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC.
Far away to the north, young Mary Brennan, an Irish immigrant only recently arrived to our shores, remembered well that dreadful day, etched in her memory for the rest of her life. Mary was a devout Catholic, but like many a devout Protestant of the day, she regarded Good Friday, the day Christ died, as a somber and solemn holy day. It was not a day to be honored with laughing, frivolity or going out to see a musical comedy at the theater.
Ford’s Theater. The box where Lincoln was shot.
“He never would have died” Mary would often say, “had he not gone to see that play on Good Friday.” Great grandmother was a font of omens and superstitions; her numerous descendants can still recite one or another piece of her Old World wisdom at will.
Abraham Lincoln, however, was never a “technical Christian,” as another Mary–Mary Todd Lincoln–once explained to an interviewer. Indeed, President Lincoln had ample reason to celebrate that Good Friday. Confederate general Robert E. Lee and his entire army had surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant scarcely a week before, and that very morning the Grant was delivering his report to the President and Cabinet in person.
For the first time in four years, Lincoln, who frequently suffered from “melancholy” seemed uncommonly hopeful, now that the end of the Rebellion was in sight. Lincoln could at last look ahead to the future, forward to peace and the task of rebuilding a nation torn apart by a deadly fratricidal conflict.
As his Cabinet chatted before the official beginning of the meeting, Lincoln casually told them that Good Friday about the “usual dream” he had had only the night before. He explained that before every major event of the war, he had dreamed the same dream: of a ship sailing towards a distant shore. It always portended important war news. Lincoln, raised on presentments, omens and prophetic dreams, believed that this latest portent was a sign of something momentous about to happen.
Nor was this the first time Lincoln had experienced a vision or prophetic dream warning of his impending death: “visions of grandeur and gloom,” his law partner referred to them as. Right after receiving news of his election in November of 1860, Lincoln experienced a waking vision of two images of him, one well and alive, the other corpse-like. There were other presentiments–or premonitions–including a fateful dream only ten days before the cabinet meeting, where he dreamed he was walking through the White House. He could hear the sounds of subdued sobbing and occasional wailing, until entering the East Room, where he saw a body lying in state. He asked a guard who it was that lay there, to which the man replied: “the President. He was killed by an assassin!” All these omens and presentiments are documented in greater detail and backed by primary sources in The Paranormal Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
“Coming Events Cast Their Shadow Before” Here an artist makes fun of the President’s well-known belief in omens, visions and prophetic dreams.
On April 14, Lincoln was expecting news at any time from Sherman in North Carolina, where “Uncle Billy” had run to ground the once proud Confederate Army of Tennessee, now commanded by “Uncle Joe” Johnston. Johnston’s force was but a hollow shell of what it had once been, but the proud Rebels, barefoot and in rags, could still fight like wildcats—cornered wildcats. Lincoln hoped to hear that Johnston too had surrendered, marking the end of organized resistance. Surely the “usual dream” portended this, thought Lincoln.
Later that day, as Lincoln and his wife readied for the theater, the President was in an uncommonly optimistic mood, not realizing the prophetic dream he had the night before the April 14 meeting portended not good news about Sherman and the Confederates in North Carolina but was, instead, a presentiment of his own death. For even as Abraham and Mary dressed for the night, across town a band of conspirators were also preparing for the night—only their performance would end in death and mayhem.
Much has been written about that day and about the conspirators led by John Wilkes Booth; yet, to this day there remains some uncertainty as to how deeply the Booth Conspiracy ran. The Confederate government’s papers relating to its espionage department conveniently burned when Richmond fell to the Union Army. How far the conspiracy to do away with Lincoln and his Cabinet extended has never been fully explored.
To be sure, many persons were arrested and the leading conspirators executed. But Mary Lincoln, for one, had her suspicions that there were others involved who got away, including some high placed in the Lincoln administration. Mrs. Grant too, had an incident and experienced a premonition that day causing her to make General Grant turn down the President’s invitation to attend the theater.
Historians, however, hate loose ends and strands of evidence pointing to a broader conspiracy lie moldering in archives and museums little looked at or considered. Who knows, the truth may still be out there, waiting to be uncovered.
In Chapter 31 of Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War, I go more deeply into strange circumstances surrounding the assassins and other ignored aspects of the Conspiracy. Just as Lincoln’s ship of state was about to reach that ‘far and distant shore’ of peace, the captain—Lincoln—was cut down. Lincoln’s last Presentiment was so compelling, Walt Whitman even made a poem out of it.
It is difficult, even now, to fathom what the Nation lost that fatal Good Friday at Ford’s Theater. Let us remember, Lincoln not only preserved the Union; he signed the Morill Act, which created land-grant universities to provide free college education, the Homestead Act, which redistributed millions of acres of land free to any homeless person who had a will to settle and till it; and of course, he fought and died for the principle racial equality, and the fundamental right of all working people to be paid for their labor.
These and other progressive reforms were what truly made Lincoln great—not simply his leadership of a war that was forced on him by the Slaveocracy and the textile manufacturers who benefitted from human bondage. In the end, Lincoln paid for his achievements with his life. As we commemorate Good Friday and Easter Sunday this April, this too should be borne in mind.
The Paranormal Presidency chronicles his prophetic dreams, premonitions and beliefs, as well as his participation in séances and Spiritualism
LONG SHADOWS: More Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War
Sunday is a day of rest, or it should be–all the more so if it is Easter Sunday. April sixth, 1862 started out that way for the Union troops of General Grant’s army encamped along the Tennessee River at Pittsburg Landing in west Tennessee. This was where most of General Grant’s men had ended up, although initially they were supposed to gather at the river port of Savannah Tennessee.
In any case, all seemed placid. Most men were sleeping in; a few early risers had begun breakfast, others were just lolling about, enjoying their leisure. There had been some shots in the distance when it was still pitch black, but no one took notice—probably a nervous guard or two, is all. As men dreamed dreams of home and loved ones, blood-curdling yells broke the peace.
Men awoke, groggy and disoriented, to suddenly find a bayonet descending on them the next second.
As Ambrose Bierce observed, “many of Grant’s men when spitted on Confederate bayonets were as naked as civilians; but it should not be allowed that this was not because of any defect in their picket line. Their error was of another sort: they had no pickets.”
Grant’s men advancing to the rear on the first day of Shiloh. Grant would later claim he was not taken by surprise and blamed almost every other Union general for the defeat but himself and Sherman.
The outlying Union camps were quickly overrun. Federals hearing the commotion ran to grab their guns and rushed to the front only to find themselves too late, as successive waves of howling Rebels outflanked overran one after another Yankee positions. As the sun descended blood red in the west, the shattered remnants of Grants army huddled by the edge of the river, a leaderless mob, acting like condemned men awaiting their doom.
General “Bull” Nelson, at the head of the first relief column of Buell’s to unload at Pittsburg Landing at dusk on the sixth, threatened to open fire on the panic-stricken mob, and his division was only able to advance up the slope by fixing bayonets, ready to stick any of Grant’s men who got in their way.
In the weeks leading up to the battle, Grant had had ample time to build redoubts, entrenchments and other defenses to protect against surprise attack, yet failed to do so. Grant was not even at Pittsburg Landing, making his headquarters a number of miles away at Savannah, Tennessee.
Nor did Grant’s many regiments of cavalry and infantry do much patrol work outside their own bivouacs, as they may easily have done.
Still, one must give credit where credit is due: Grant knew how to write a great after-action report, and in it everyone but himself found some blame, save for his flame bearded—and some said crazy—friend General Sherman. Buell “went slow,” Wallace “went slow;” but apparently the Butternuts of Johnston & Beauregard’s army did not go slow on April sixth. Luckily, the Confederates failed to overrun the riverboat landing by sunset on the first day–they were too exhausted from their stunning victory. During the night, a fresh Federal army arrived and came across the river under General Don Carlos Buell to save the day—but that day would be April seventh, not the sixth.
If you read any one of the many books on Shiloh, the word that almost always comes to mind is “bloody.” While there would be many battles that would later prove as gory as Shiloh, this was the first fight where the bloodletting proved to be on such a staggering scale for both sides. Many a young man with a sweetheart at home never got to hold her in his arms; many a son was never to ever see his mother or sister.
The Bloody Pond exists as a reminder to the awful carnage and bloodletting of that day; it was said to have turned crimson from the blood of the men who went there to bath their wounds. Some wounded, crawling there with their last strength died in it face down in the water. Ever since that day, the pond will occasionally turn a livid hue of blood-red. Some say it is just reflecting the April blossoms on the trees, others dismiss it as a summer algae tainting it a crimson tint. Curse or coincidence, who is to say for sure?
Many who fell that day earned a mass grave alongside other unnamed souls in unhallowed ground and that alone would be enough to account for the many reported hauntings.
There is also a nearby Native American burial ground, which is also claimed to be a serious source of hauntings. The Shiloh Indian Mounds – are six rectangular mounds that served as platforms for the town’s important buildings. Five of the buildings are believed to have housed a council house, religious buildings, and homes. The sixth is believed to be the where the town’s leaders were interred. Visitors report cold gusts of wind, even during the heat of the day in summer. Colorful orbs are often observed darting in and out of the ground or hovering over mounds. If you listen carefully, one may even hear the faint sound of tribal chanting: witchy tai-to, ho ra nika, ho ra nika, hey hey, no-wah.
Is it any wonder that ever since that awful Sunday, those who have traversed the many acres that make up Shiloh battlefield have reported feeling strange feelings, hearing strange sounds and seeing strange sights?
There is, for example, the tale of the phantom drummer. I won’t recite the full story here, for it is told in full in Chapter 11 of Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War. suffice it to say that on more than one occasion visitors to the national park have heard the sound of a distant drum, pounding out the “Long Roll,” when no re-enactor or musician is present anywhere on the grounds.
Lest we think these reports of ghosts and hauntings are just a product of modern tourism or social media sensationalism, written accounts of the battlefield and Pittsburg Landing being haunted date back to before it was even a national park.
One Union veteran, making a pilgrimage there in 1883, relates that, “one of the boats on this river has a mate, a large, powerful man, whom neither threats nor entreaties can induce to go ashore here at night. He tremblingly relates how, one dark night, he saw several soldiers in full uniform come aboard the boat and disappear over the bow. He also strongly claims to have seen whole regiments of spirit soldiers drill on the brink of the bluff, and to have heard the hollow, solemn voices of the officers giving commands.“
Other visitors to Shiloh claim to have heard the sounds of gunfire, or the moaning and screams of wounded men, desperately crying out for help. The Hornets’ Nest is one of several locations where such sounds have been heard. This location is renowned as a part of the battlefield which saw some of the most intense fighting on April sixth.
The Confederates repeatedly tried to take the Hornet’s Nest and “Sunken Road” position throughout the afternoon, but the Federals there kept them from breaking through to the landing. It was the scene of intense hand to hand combat as both sides fought with everything possible: as muskets, cannon, swords, knives, rifle-butts and bayonets. Visitors report hearing the sounds of cannons firing throughout the park, but much of it is coming from the direction of the Hornets’ Nest, which was finally taken only after a massed artillery barrage blew the defenders to pieces.
Since most visitors leave the park by sunset, only a select few have actually seen apparitions on the grounds. However, local residents, driving through the grounds at night, often encounter a strange encompassing fog and swear it’s filled with the shadowy figures of men slowly marching through it. Park rangers I have talked to angrily deny any such things ever occur.
Park officials, of course, are always concerned about trespassers, and uncanny accounts such as these could lure some folk to go where and when they aren’t allowed. Far be it from me to add to their concerns.
Still, many do believe the restless dead of Bloody Shiloh cannot be mollified. So, if you do go, you may only feel an eerie silence as I did; or possibly the sound of footsteps following you; you may even fancy you hear the distant sound of drumming. Is this just your imagination? Perhaps; or perhaps something more yet abides on the blood-drenched fields of Shiloh Battlefield.
LONG SHADOWS: More Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War
Clear the Way! by Don Troiani
In Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War, among the many battlefield ghosts I chronicle, one of the best documented haunts occurs at Antietam Battlefield in Maryland. The Story of the famed Irish Brigade and their ghosts who still inhabit the bloody fields of Antietam, makes for one of the more interesting of the many tales told of that tragic and violent episode of the American Civil War.
The story of how General McClellan, armed in advance with the Confederate battle plan, managed turn certain victory into a bloody draw, need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say, many blunders were made that day at Antietam, mostly on the Union side.
The brave rifles of the Irish Brigade were volunteers all. They had enlisted to fight for their adopted country, although ultimately they hoped that the martial skills they learned with the Union Army might one day used to liberate their homeland. That day at Antietam they were called on to make a frontal assault on a strongly held sunken road, bordered by a stout wooden fence; it was a naturally strong defensive position, fronting on an open field. It was over this open country, without any protection and any support, that the men of the Irish Brigade were called on to attack/
And attack they did; charging headlong across an open field, with an enemy well hidden in the sunken road behind the stout wooden fence the Irish regiments suffered horrific losses: it is estimated that this one attack cost them 60% casualties. Some got close enough to begin dismantling the zig-zag fence and use their buck and ball smoothbores (effectively shotguns) on the Rebs, but failed to take their objective.
Although unsuccessful, the brigade’s attack gave other Federal units enough time to flank the Confederate position. After butchering the Irish Brigade in the open field, it was then Lee’s troops turn to be slaughtered in the Bloody Lane. The road was open on the ends and relatively straight, so when Union troops gained the flank of the defenders, they poured a withering fire directly down the road on the unprotected Rebel regiments, the Confederates dying in heaps where they stood.
This painting, by Captain James Hope, based on a field sketch, captures some of the horror of the awful carnage at the Bloody Lane.
Visitors to Antietam Battlefield have had many spectral encounters over the years at Antietam, but one of the more curious incidents is the one I documented in Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War. In Ghosts and Haunts I relate how a whole class of students from a private boys school report hearing unseen voices singing Christmas carols on the battlefield.
On reading their class reports about their field trip, their history teacher, an expert on the Civil War, was perplexed. The young scholars had penned their reports on the bus ride back from the battlefield and did not have time to engage in any collusion or organize a practical joke. What on earth did they think they heard?
On quizzing the students, the majority told him they heard the caroling near a sunken road on the battlefield now called Bloody Lane, a place made famous by the charge of the Federal’s Irish Brigade, who suffered terrible losses in their attack across the open fields there.
When asked exactly what Christmas song they heard, they were united in saying “Deck the Halls”–with its chorus of “Fall-a-Lalla-La.”
It was then a light suddenly went on in the teacher’s brain: “Faugh a Ballagh,” (fág an bealach), he knew, was the war cry of the famed Irish Brigade—yet none of the students could have known that!
The Bloody Lane is not the sole spot at Antietam with a haunted reputation. The Federal attack over Burnside Bridge was a bloody and senseless incident. A small, narrow stone bridge over a shallow creek, the Union troops could easily have forded the stream, but their obtuse commander with his long “sideburn” beard–General Burnside–insisted on trying to take the bridge instead.
Yankee troops tried to force a crossing over Antietam Creek at Burnside Bridge paid dearly for it that day. Since then, there have been numerous visitors who have given eyewitness accounts of spectral encounters. Many reports seeing ghostly figures, others strange blue balls of light and still more have heard the sounds of a phantom drummer drumming and other battle sounds there.
There are also nearby buildings, used as field hospitals at the time, that are also hotbeads of paranormal activity. Indeed, how could anyone expect any less, given the high number of killed and mained that resulted from this battle.
There would be other battles and more mayhem, but this blooding of he gallant Irish Brigade remains etched in red in its regiments’ history. So tread lightly if you visit Sharpsburg and its environs and honor the spirits of those of both sides who fought and died at bloody Antietam.
For more Civil War ghost stories see my Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War; Rutledge Hill did the original edition which is still in print, although Barnes & Noble, Lone Pine and Sterling have come out with economy hardcovers in addition to the paperback. My first book, Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, also chronicles the battlefield hauntings of Shiloh, Chickamauga and Franklin.
LONG SHADOWS: MORE GHOSTS & HAUNTS OF THE CIVIL WAR
Grant at Fort Donelson by Paul D. Philippoteaux.
In February of 1862 the Union army launched a major campaign against Forts Donelson and Henry. These twin Confederate bastions stood guard over the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers along the border with Kentucky—still technically neutral–and which together formed a barrier keeping the Federal armies from invading the western Confederacy.
It so happens that, just as the twin rivers empty into the Ohio River, the two rivers come close to one another, forming a narrow region once called Land Between the Rivers—today Land Between the Lakes, thanks to the damns built by the TVA in the 20th century. Control of this strategic conjunction of land and river was vital to both sides in the struggle for dominion in the western theater of war.
It was here that in the winter of ‘62 that an amphibious force of Federals came to break the Confederate defenses, a move which would change the course of the war. Led by General Ulysses S. Grant and accompanied by a naval flotilla under Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote, the Yankee flotilla of tortoise-like ironclads first bombarded Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, pounding it into submission with the big guns of the ironclads.
At this point General Grant, still technically a brigadier, was supposed to halt at Fort Henry, occupy it and await his superior, General Henry Halleck, to come up with reinforcements, at which point the Federal fleet would go back up to the Ohio and then descend down the Cumberland River to bombard Fort Donelson. General Halleck, nicknamed “Old Brains,” was a cautious general, more concerned with not losing than actually winning a battle.
However, in a bold move Grant landed his small force, then marched them overland and besieged Fort Donelson from the landward side, catching the Rebel garrison off guard. The Confederates, it turned out, had all their big guns pointing down-river, in the direction they thought the Yankee fleet would come.
February of 1862 was a bitter cold time. Soldiers on both sides suffered terribly from frostbite and exposure to the elements. Wounded, trapped in the no man’s land between the two armies, suffered as much from icy weather as from wounds received in battle and many Union soldiers, with survivable wounds, died a slow and agonizing death on the outer slopes before Fort Donelson. The Rebel troops, wearing lightweight uniforms, were ill-prepared for a winter campaign and were short of food to boot, so behind their steep parapets they too suffered from the winter weather.
After several Rebel attempts to break the siege, all of them bloody failures, Grant ultimately bluffed the incompetent Confederate commanders into surrendering. When the Confederate generals, political appointees, asked for terms, Grant replied that his terms were “Unconditional Surrender,” thereby assuring his fame and opening the way into the heartland of the Confederacy.
Once the twin forts fell and prisoners herded up to journey to the cold, cold north, the dead were quickly interred in the ground. But there are many who say that their shades linger still at Land Between the Lakes, and some dead still walk its trails, paths and by-ways. Visitors, guides and costumed re-enactors all have their own tales to tell regarding the restless dead of Fort Donelson and the lands that surround it.
After my first book, Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, which chronicled several Civil War ghosts and haunts, and even more so after Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War, I had occasion to talk with several re-enactors who have camped at Fort Donelson at various times, in earnest endeavors to try and re-create conditions as close to that of February, 1862, as they may. Re-enactors with whom I have spoken told me it is not uncommon for one or another of their ranks to have uncanny encounters at Fort Donelson.
One, a sutler, describes awakening in her tent in the dead of night to see all her wares violently rattling to and fro and her tent shaking down to the stakes. Yet there was no wind or storm or any such natural event that night that might explain it. Apparently there wassomething–something supernatural–that could. Nor was she the only camper to experience incidents they could not explain rationally.
In March of 2016, a family visited the Fort Donelson National Battlefield, following the signage that dots the fort and its environs. The Fort as it stands today is a large earthen redoubt, all the wooden shacks, tents and artillery long since gone. The whole is surrounded by a steep embankment, ending in a dry moat. It was here that many men in blue lost their lives, as well as some in gray who counterattacked the Yankee horde. As they wandered close to the ravine, on a whim they did a few recording sessions as one sometimes sees on TV; in this case they actually got a “no” in response to a question.
Later, as they were leaving this same part of the battlefield, they distinctly heard loud footsteps rustling the leaves in the ravine:
“we went down close to the area and saw absolutely nothing. We looked for wildlife, birds, squirrel. ANYTHING that could have been making the noise. Funny thing is we kept hearing it around us but nothing was there.”
They repeatedly heard the sound of feet walking or marching, yet no one and nothing was visible. In 2021, a small group of investigators from the Ghost Research Society also visited the fort; they too saw nothing but did record a number of clear voice responses to questions posed by the team.
Previous visitors to Fort Donelson and the surrounding battlefields claim that long dead soldiers still walk the lands of Fort Donelson, and report hearing gunshots, the sounds of marching neb, and cannon. On rare occasion people have reported hearing an eerie ghostly sound of the Rebel Yell echo across the ramparts of the fort.
Near to the fort, and also administered by the National Parks, is Surrender House. This is were the formal Confederate surrender was signed and where Grant first made his fame. At the time of the battle, it was known as the Dover Hotel, a small two-story establishment built in the 1850’s, it accommodated riverboat travelers before and after the Civil War. General Buckner and his staff used the hotel as their headquarters during the battle and also served as a Union hospital after the surrender. Only the first floor of the hotel is open to the public and has minimal signage to explain the building’s importance. Nevertheless, disembodied voices and ghostly apparitions sometimes startle visitors of the Surrender House, which tends to make the brief visit to the site even shorter than intended.
Not far below the fort and near to the National Cemetery, there used to be a well-appointed bed & breakfast: the Riverfront Plantation Inn. It was an antebellum home built in 1859, which in recent times was converted to a luxury Bed and Breakfast. Located on Crow Road, it was sometimes referred to ‘Crow Home’, and was a great place to stay in the area; sadly, it burnt down in 2008.
During the siege, the Riverfront Plantation Inn was used as a field hospital, and here many of the wounded and dying were brought for care. Not surprisingly, it also is said to boast some resident spooks, mostly those of injured soldiers, and possibly also the spectral remnants of doctors and nurses who worked feverishly with very little equipment to save lives. In its heyday as a B&B visitors would report hearing the soft sound of voices talking indistinctly in the home, and doors would often open and close all on their own.
One of the most bizarre phenomena reported in the area is that of a ghostly river. According to reports, there is a little traveled back road near the historic area in which you have to pass through a nonexistent river! You can see and hear it flowing right before your eyes, but if you walk into its waters, you will not get wet. Very strange, even by paranormal standards. There are also accounts of some sort of man-beast, part wolf, part human, roaming Land Between the Lakes, but that is best left to the field of Crypto-Zoology, than hauntings per se.
Another paranormal phenomenon reported in the area of Fort Donelson is the so-called “Phantom Trucker.” While this may sound like a modern haunting, the actual reports by witnesses don’t talk about seeing any cars or trucks, but of eerie lights following them, sometimes just one light, sometimes more. From the eyewitnesses, this sounds more like Ghost Lights, an unexplained phenomenon that can occur almost anywhere, but is often associated with battlefields and places where tragedy has occurred.
Another Civil War reenactor told me of performing picket duty at night while his unit was there one year recreating the battle and siege. Many re-enactors try to get into the spirit of the period, not just for visitors during the day, but at night as well, and an onlooker might easily mistake them for the real thing.
This re-enactor was on duty late at night when he saw a light coming up the hill in the distance. The dim glow grew larger and larger as it approached him and, at first, he could not make out what it was. Then it came close by and passed him; in the eerie glow he could see the torso and head of a man, seemingly an officer, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and smoking an old-fashioned stogie; it was the phantom cigar that illumined the figure.
It almost seemed as if the phantom officer were making the rounds, checking on the bivouac to see all the guards were on duty. But the cigar-smoking figure was no re-enactor; he had no lower body, just a materialized torso and be-hatted head. Was it the ghost of General Grant? Or was it the shade of some other tobacco-loving commander, North or South? Who knows?
What we do know that accounts of people having paranormal encounters in the region of Fort Donelson are too numerous to mention. If you have any first-hand experiences to add to the roll of those encounters, you are welcome to add your reminiscences to those of others. Until then, enjoy reading about them from the comfort of your warm, well light, home.
For more Civil War ghost stories see my Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War; Rutledge Hill did the original edition which is still in print, although Barnes & Noble, Lone Pine and Sterling have come out with economy hardcovers in addition to the paperback. My first book, Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, also chronicles the battlefield hauntings of Shiloh, Chickamauga and Franklin.
Most everyone is familiar with the tale of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, but in Tennessee we have another headless rider, from the time of the Civil War; the Headless Horseman of Stones River!
LONG SHADOWS: MORE GHOSTS & HAUNTS OF THE CIVIL WAR
Most every schoolchild has at one time or another read the famous legend of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. American author Washington Irving had quite a knack for turning local gossip and tall tales about the Hudson Valley and surrounding mountains into compelling short stories of the strange and supernatural.
As a boy I remember hearing the thunder booming through the valleys and peaks of the Catskills and you could swear the old stories were true–that it was the sound of Hendrick Hudson’s raucous, curséd, crew, playing rounds of Nine-Pins and quaffing pints of nut-brown ale through to eternity. Likewise, in my youth, I remember being shown the old, twisted oak, where in olden day they had hanged Major André, the dapper English spy, which folks swear is still haunted by the unlucky gentleman ghost. Or say, hearing from Pop Gus, my railroad engineer grandfather, the tale of the Lincoln Ghost Train, (Chapter 32 of Ghosts & Haunts of the Civil War) which he swore he saw one misty April morn as it wound its way from Washington, DC, through the twisty old mountain rail-lines to points westward, on its eternal way, winding back to Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Illinois.
But of course, the ghost tale of the Hudson Valley that topped all others was the aforementioned story by Irving about the headless Revolutionary War soldier. For better effect, I suppose, Washington made the soldier a horseman, although the ghost story as it was originally told was about a Headless Hessian, a green-coat foot-soldier adorned with brass mitre cap. In a forgotten battle against Washington’s men, a solid round-shot of black iron, you see, passed so neatly between his neck and the tall grenadier cap he wore, that it left but a gap of gory goo where once his head had sat.
Some say Washinton Irving’s change to branch of service was an honest mistake, since Loyalist Tory cavalry serving with the Brits wore short green jackets similar in color to some German foot soldiers. Regardless, he was correct about the war and the color of jacket the ghost wore, and of his frightening aspect as well. However, we’re not here to re-tell an old Yankee tale about the Revolutionary War, but to recount the story of a Headless Horseman of the Civil War, whose body was laid to rest without its usual upper appendage in the green fields of Tennessee.
In Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, I previously explored the ghosts and haunts of the Stones River battleground, which are as numerous as they are uncanny. There are many other Civil War spirits that haunt the area too, since the National Park only covers a fraction of the original field where they battled, been fatally wounded, and bled until dead. In going over numerous first-hand encounters, visitors and park personnel have often told of hearing vivid sounds of battle, experiencing “cold spots” or simply the sensation of being watched. More rarely, they have even encountered full blown apparitions. But pinpointing who-or what-was doing the haunting is in most cases unknown and unknowable.
Of all these paranormal activities related to Stones River Battlefield, none is better known than the Headless Horseman. Moreover, in the case of the Headless Horseman we believe we are better informed of the circumstances that caused his haunting, even though the gentleman in question lacks his tongue to talk to us with. The ghost in question was a blue-coat Yankee, a gentleman and officer of some renown: Lieutenant-Colonel Julius Garesché, Chief of Staff in the Army of the Cumberland, one of the Union Army’s best fighting force, even if historians have not always given this army its due credit.
The strange case of Colonel Garesché began several years before the war. He came from a devoutly religious family, whose beliefs included taking cursing and “taking the Lord’s name in vain” as a serious sin with dire consequences. When war came, the Colonel’s family took differing sides, leading to a family curse, ensuing prophecy and a fatal presentiment. The full story of Garesché’s presentiment of death is detailed in depth in Chapter 17 of Strange Tales. Our present concern, however, is with the aftermath; specifically with the events surrounding the Battle of Stones River in late December of 1862.
After Antietam, the Lincoln administration was impatient for his generals to provide the Republic with a decisive Union victory. Lincoln had announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which would take effect in January, and he did not want it to seem that it had been done from weakness rather than strength, especially to the British and the French, who were straining for any pretext to aid the cotton-rich Confederacy, whose raw material they desperately needed for their factories, a crop which in turn depended on slave labor to grow and harvest. The Battle of Antietam, earlier in the Fall was, at best, a draw even though General McClellan had literally been given Lee’s battle plans in advance. Despite knowing his opponent’s every move, McClellan still managed to turn what should have been a knockout blow to the Confederacy into an indecisive bloodbath.
Lincoln relieved the indecisive McClellan with someone he hoped would be more aggressive–General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside promised to give him a decisive win; he envisioned a rapid movement across the Rappahannock River and take the Confederate capital of Richmond before Lee could block the Yankee advance. In the actual event, Burnside’s “rapid advance” turned out to be a molasses-like maneuver, his army waiting on the arrival of engineers bringing pontoon bridges by wagon, along winter roads knee-deep in mud.
The Army of the Potomac, although admirably equipped and trained, was never an army fond of winter campaigning. They preferred to wait out the snowy months in their warm, comfortable bivouacs around Washington D C; the Federals, used to McClellan’s pampering, were in no hurry to attempt a winter crossing across the Rappahannock under fire into Fredericksburg.
By the time the bridging equipment finally arrived, any element of surprise the Federals had hoped for was gone and Lee had moved his army into well-fortified positions overlooking the town. Despite this, Burnside still ordered his men to attack, sending them into a death trap with no hope of success.
Even as they pressed Burnside into an ill-considered offensive in the east, Lincoln and his advisors were also pressuring General Rosecrans to commit his newly formed Army of the Cumberland to take the offensive in the west, ready or not.
Rosecrans at first resisted taking the field, protesting to Washington that his newly formed force was not ready. But by late December, impatient for a victory of any sort, the Lincoln Administration made it clear that he either advanced immediately or he’d be relieved of duty.
Facing Rosecrans was General Bragg’s Army of Tennessee, which had been consolidated from two Rebel armies that had invaded Kentucky earlier that Fall. While the Kentucky Campaign had not succeeded in taking the state, the Confederates could not be said to have been defeated and continued to threaten the Yankee army occupying Nashville.
Christmas in Nashville was filled with alarms and excursions, with Rosey’s regiments being notified to take the field on an almost daily basis, only to have the order rescinded hours later, General Rosecrans and his generals finally packed up their field wagons and portmanteaus and began an advance against Bragg’s boys, encamped just north of the city of Murfreesboro, along the meandering banks of Stones River, patiently awaiting the Yankees to join them for their shivaree.
The weather was less than ideal for marching, being a typical Tennessee mix of winter wet and cold, while the Union columns also faced constant harassment from Rebel cavalry. But by December 30, the Army of the Cumberland had arrived along the northern banks of Stones River, where the Confederates were patiently waiting their arrival.
There were no surprises in store for either army–or at least there shouldn’t have been–when battle began at first light on December 31st. Nevertheless, the Union right was taken, if not by surprise, at least unprepared, and suffered heavy casualties in the initial fighting among the cedar groves north of the river–what would come to be called the “Slaughter Pen.” American author Ambrose Bierce was at the time was a newly minted second lieutenant serving in General Hazen’s Brigade, on the Union left, and years later gave a concise description of the day’s fighting:
“The history of that action is exceedingly simple. The two armies, nearly equal in strength, confronted one another on level ground at daybreak. As the Federal left was preparing to attack the Confederate right the Confederate left took the initiative and attacked the Federal right. By nightfall, which put an end to the engagement, the whole Federal line had been turned upon its left, as upon a hinge, till it lay at a right angle to its first direction,”San Francisco Examiner, May 5, 1889.
Hazen’s Brigade sat at the apex of this giant V, anchoring the Union line in a part of the battlefield called “the Round Forest.” It was upon this vital spot that the Rebels turned the weight of their attacks to as the afternoon wore on. The Union right, having been forced back upon their rear areas, had managed to stabilize their line, which extended in a long diagonal from the Round Forest northwestward, with the railroad not far behind it as Bragg’s brave battalions continued launch attack after attack.
To encourage his men with his presence and make sure they continued to hold the line, General Rosecrans, along with Chief of Staff Garesché, and a few of their aides, trotted down the Union line on horseback.
Rosecrans apparently hoped that, seeing their commander and his second in command inspecting the front lines, it would have a calming effect on the troops, their lack of fear in the face of heavy enemy fire serving to encourage the rank and file. In the actual event the horses’ stately trot down the line turned into more of a jittery gallop, and what happened next to the Federal commander’s mounted party was anything but inspiring of confidence.
Far across the harvested cornfields, the long blue Yankee battleline was visible for some distance, even with clouds of brimstone-tainted smoke wafting across the open spaces. Behind that line one could clearly see old Rosey ride astride his mount, with Garesché close by on a snow-white stallion, both officer’s outlines silhouetted above the restless blue ranks. The two men were a tempting target and if perhaps too far for Rebel sharpshooters to hit with any precision, it was well within reach of Confederate artillerymen.
The officer in charge of one section of Semples’ Alabama Battery that day, was observing the Yankee lines through his field glasses when he caught sight of the group of Federals galloping boldly along, just behind the enemy’s main battleline. Gunnery Sergeant Hall told his superior he believed he could kill the exposed Yankee officer; Major Hotchkiss, also seeing the horseman, expressed the sentiment that, Yankee or not, that man was “too brave to be killed.” But war is war, and so they opened fire on the target.
Although the target was a good mile and a half distant, the solid shot came hurtling towards its intended victim General Rosecrans with amazing accuracy, missing him by inches. Sergeant Hall’s aim was as true and straight as the best Rebel sharpshooter’s might be, and he nearly did succeed in taking out the Yankee’s commanding general at a crucial stage of the struggle.
But Garesché, Rosey’s Chief of Staff and best friend, had been deliberately staying close beside his commander, hoping to spoil the aim of any sniper who might try to kill the general as they rode along in such a prominent manner. In this goal Julius succeeded admirably–at the same time fulfilling the dire prophecy his brother–a Catholic priest–had laid on him years before.
The black metal messenger of death narrowly missed General Rosencrans with only inches to spare–but found its mark close by with ghastly, gory precision. One second Julius was conversing with William; the next there was a flash of blood, brains and bone, vaporizing the colonel’s head. A fragment of the shell went on to wound an aide riding not far behind. With the command group was also riding a noted war correspondent Henry Lovie, who captured the moment of horror in graphic detail.
Field sketch by combat artist Henry Lovie depictingthe moment that the Rebel shell killed Colonel Garesché, with notes for the magazine engravers as to the details. Library of Congress.
Although Colonel Garesché’s head was gone, his body still stood erect in the saddle, astride the pale white steed, maintaining a proper military posture. It rode on for a short distance, as if the body had not quite got the message that its head was no longer along for the ride. After what seemed a long time, but in fact was but a few seconds, the trotting motion of the horse caused the headless corpse to teeter to one side and then slide off onto the ground. Colonel Garesché had made his rendezvous with death.
Rosencrans, badly shaken, rode on with the remainder of his command staff, trying to reassure his men that he was alive, well and unharmed. However, with his best friend’s brains, blood and gore splattered all over his head, face and uniform, the impression Rosey made on the troops as he passed by was less than encouraging.
Nevertheless, Rosecrans and his soldiers had far more to worry about than appearances, less they too ended up splattered all over the battlefield. The Federal army carried on with its deadly task, until nightfall at last brought an end to the day’s harvest of death.
About ten minutes after his death, Brigadier Hazen chanced to pass the spot where friend lay, not far from Hazen’s besieged command in the Round Forest. The spot where he lay was oddly still:
“He was alone, no soldier — dead or living thing — near him. I saw but a headless trunk; an eddy of crimson foam had issued from where his head should be. I at once recognized his figure, it lay so naturally, his right hand across his breast. As I approached, dismounted, and bent over him, the contraction of a muscle extended the hand slowly and slightly towards me,”
After the fighting subsided, Hazen ordered a burial detail to retrieve the headless corpse and had his West Point classmate interred in a shallow grave nearby. By lantern light, Hazen supervised his hasty burial, gathering his personal effects to prevent them from being stolen by those who haunt battlefields in search of loot.
Hazen supervised the hasty burial of Colonel Garesché’s headless corpse by flickering lamplight in unconsecrated ground. The headless rider is thought to be Garesché seeking his missing head.
We know the time, place and manner of Garesché’s demise. The manner of the Headless Horseman first appearance is less certain. We hear of few, if any, apparitions directly after the Civil War. It is thought the trauma of what the soldiers and civilians alike had experienced was still too fresh in their memories and there were few who wished to open old wounds by recounting odd or supernatural experiences, no matter how real they may be. Mention of the Headless Horseman, as well as the numerous other ghosts related to the battle, were first committed to print sometime in the early twentieth century.
As for Colonel Garesché, although he had enjoyed benefit of clergy just before the battle, his own deep religious beliefs may have contributed to his spirit’s restless roaming. When he took the Lord’s name in vain and cursed his Secessionist relatives, he believed that, in turn, provoked a curse upon himself as well.
His brother, a priest, had a strong strain of fatalism mixed in with his religious faith and believed there was no way to lift the curse his soldier sibling had provoked. Then too, burying of the body in un-hallowed ground, even temporarily, may have unwittingly unleashed uncanny supernatural forces, the sort of entities who “roam the world, seeking the ruin of souls.”
Whether the Headless Horseman only makes his appearance on the anniversary of his death, or whether he is apt to appear at other times, is not certain. At least one re-enactor spotted him riding close beside the train tracks while they were encamped on the battlefield at night; National Parks staff have observed his phantom transit at various times. Moreover, CSX train crews have spotted the Headless Horseman riding parallel to the rails from time to time. Others assert they see him recreate his fatal ride when the moon is full and frost is in the air.
What is known is that the Headless Horseman rides besides the rails up to the present time and while one may debate when he rides or why, no matter how many times he rides and at whatever hour his visage is seen, one fact is certain: no matter how often he repeats his fatal ride, he will never, ever, find his head again.
Some folks say that Monterrey, Tennessee, is a hundred miles from nowhere. But that isn’t strictly true. The town of Monterrey, sitting high atop a pass through the Cumberland Mountains, is a hundred miles from Knoxville, a hundred miles from Nashville and a hundred miles from Chattanooga. So, if you’ve a mind to get away from the strife and organized insanity of big city life, it’s a pretty fair place to go to unwind, a place where the hilltops touch the sky. So, I guess you’d say, it’s more a cozy little somewhere that’s a hundred miles from everywhere.
Today, Monterrey is a quiet rural town of some three thousand folk, give or take. Once’t upon a time, however, it was a bustling railroad junction, where coal or lumber trains rumbled through almost nonstop day and night and you could ride in comfort in a parlor car of the Tennessee Central.
The lone reminder of those halcyon days is the little railroad museum in the center of town, sitting smack dab where the old railroad depot lay in the 1890’s.
A lot of things have changed since those days, but one thing that still abides there is ole’ Whistling Willie, the train station ghost. Nobody right knows who Willie is—or was—but his presence is definitely tied to the old depot, so folks think he lived and died riding the rails.
Willie first makes his presence known to folks near the middle of the museum, which is where the old railway office was located before the depot was rebuilt into a community museum.
It may be that Willie has been haunting this spot for a long time; it’s just that when this was a hustling bustling train station, nobody much paid a never-mind to an odd sound or other uncanny incidents that occurred.
The first documented encounter with Whistling Willie occurred a few years back, when the depot was in the process of being converted into a museum. They were putting in some security cameras and the government supervisor overseeing the project was conferring with them about it when all three started to hear a low but distinct whistling. The building is not large and they searched every corner, but could find no one and no thing that might be the source of the sound.
Some think ole Willie was a military man in his day. Willie only whistles first few bars of the Marine Corps Anthem: “From the Halls of Montezuma/To the Shores of Tripoli.” It’s a song every jarhead knows backwards and forwards.
One time, when the museum staff was putting in some new exhibits, they placed manikins in two corner of the depot, each dressed in different military uniforms. The next morning both manikins had been knocked over, but nothing else was touched. Apparently Willie did not approve of them. Perhaps they were army uniforms.
On another occasion, one of the museum staff was chatting with a visitor just before closing for the day. They were at the front desk when Willie’s telltale whistling could be heard coming from the back of the building. Then they came an strange noise. Next, the museum worker saw a shadow in the hall, near to an old-time wooden school desk.
The shadow came closer and closer until it was right beside them. All the time there was no one to be seen; just an eerie disembodied shadow!
If you head up Monterey way, you might just run into Dale Welch, Putnam County Historian and former Publisher of the Hilltop Express, who nowadays volunteers at the museum most days. He can tell you more about Whistling Willie, plus a few more ghost stories about the haints that abide in the Cumberland Mountains. And who knows, maybe Willie will whistle up a tune for your benefit while you’re there.
Phillips Folly is the most haunted house in Maysville, KY–and some would say in the state as a whole. It is available for rental as a B&B or for weddings–for those who like to combine tradition with a spectral touch of spice.
In Dixie Spirits and Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground I have previously written about famous haints and hauntings of the Bluegrass State, and over the years have traveled its length and breadth for both business and pleasure. Today we return that fair state to investigate one of the more haunted houses there, Philips’ Folly, in Maysville.
During the Late Unpleasantness, A.K.A. the Civil War, Kentucky was a border state, its citizens divided between loyalty to the Union and a hankering to secede from same. Even before the war, however, Kentucky was very much a region torn between two worlds, the slave and the free. It was officially a slave state and a number of citizens did own slaves, but it was also a land of small landholders, whose livelihood was not so dependent on the exploitation of human bondage as the big cotton plantations of the Deep South–the Slaveocracy.
In truth, a crop of strapping sons (and a wife who was both industrious and fertile) were found more productive for productive farm life in this borderland. If a Kentuckian owned a slave, it was seen as more a sign of status and wealth than an economic necessity.
Over time, many Kayntuks grew less and less accepting of the Peculiar Institution and there sprouted up a number of Underground Railroad “stations” in the state secretly resisting the Slaveocracy, since its northern limit was the wide Ohio River. Over that broad watercourse a runaway slave might find a degree of safety– if they but followed the “drinking gourd” to freedom.
The ambivalence of Kentucky towards slavery can be seen in the fact that the two great leaders of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, were both born in log cabins there, only about eight miles apart; but their intertwined fates took different paths when one’s family moved north and the other’s moved further south.
Today, Maysville remains a charming small town, filled with historic buildings and charming stores, sitting astride the southern bank of the Ohio, and when the great river behaves itself is a wonderful place to visit. Philips’ Folly in many ways reflects the states ambivalent heritage and those who know say that its ghostly heritage also reflects those former days.
Philips’ Folly is a stately antebellum building, two and a half stories high and built in an assortment of differing architectural styles, perhaps reflecting a degree of ambivalence over what it should be. The foundation and basement is built with dry-stack cut stone, but the upper stories are made of well laid red brick. The general outline of the building is in the Federal Style and might have been intended to be a simple “salt-box” shape but ends of the building have a stepped look more typical of Dutch architecture. It also has Greek Revival style windows and Doric columns, although the grand two-tiered portico give the front façade a more Georgian aspect.
Some believe that this eclectic mix of style’s accounts for the mansion’s name. A more common explanation is that it’s builder, William B. Phillips, ran out of money in the middle of constructing the structure. Then he up and disappeared for two years; when he returned one day, he arrived mysteriously with new-found wealth to finish the house. It was said he had gained his new fortune at the gaming tables in New Orleans, although some whispered his money had been gained by even more nefarious means. In any case, the grand but unusual home was finished in 1831 and Phillips went on to become mayor of the town and a respected citizen.
In 1838 Phillips sold the home to John Armstrong, a local merchant, who lived there for a number of years. He could often be seen relaxing on the second story portico with his large and devoted Newfoundland dog. Armstrong eventually died in the house and his dog is said to have pined away for its master day and night until he also died there.
In the later part of the nineteenth century the house was the residence of a local doctor, Dr. John Reed, who conducted his practice in the basement, on occasion performing autopsies there. It may be that some of his less successful patients may still abide in that subterranean basement–which may account for at least some of the oddities reported there.
The best-known ghost—and most visible to passers-by—is John Armstrong, who has been spotted from time to time on the second story porch, with his ghostly dog by his side, quietly observing Maysville’s modern residents passing by. Both ghosts seem content to simply abide in the upper story and pass their afterlife in silent contemplation. But the ghostly duo are by no means the only spirits that inhabit the stately manse.
Some time before the Civil War, it is said an owner with Abolitionist sympathies converted the mansion into a stop on the Underground Railroad. Runaway slaves were secreted in the stone basement where there was a hidden tunnel that led down to the river, whence they would be smuggled across the river and passed to other stations located in the Midwest finally leading up to Canada and freedom.
Curiously, there was also a large wooden cage in the basement—commonly called a slave-pen—where the runaway slaves supposedly stayed before being “conducted” on. The existence of that cage seems somewhat inconsistent with it being a haven for runaways, but that ambivalence is but one of the many mysteries of this haunted home.
One tradition holds that the wooden cage served as the town jail for a time, while others hold that at one point the cage held slaves before being sold at market. Some slaves may even have been tortured or murdered in the dungeon-like basement. Over the years there have been reports of low moans emanating from the basement and what sounds to some like the rattling of chains, though no one has seen the spirits that make the sounds down there. Perhaps that is all for the better.
John Pearce, another old time resident, has also been reported haunting its halls. Some say he committed suicide in the back parlor, others that died fighting a duel. Locals report that the eerie sounds of a phantom duel have been heard emanating from that part of the house as well.
Today, the venerable manse at 227 Sutton Street in Maysville has been fashionably restored and serves alternately as bed & breakfast and wedding venue, and by all accounts its resident spirits, if occasionally restless, are totally harmless.
For more Kentucky tales, see Dixie Ghosts, an anthology of weird and uncanny events in the Bluegrass State and elsewhere. For those wanting to encounter other haunting tales relating to slave days, Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War is a good place to start. There are many macabre and morbid tales to tell in that vein and those whose curiosity is aroused by these books, we have others on tap for you to view.
Longview Mansion as it appeared in 1919, sitting majestically above the old Franklin Pike.
Like Green Hills and Berry Hill, Forest Hills is one of the storied Seven Hills of Nashville, a cluster of old neighborhoods south of downtown where the past lingers along with the ghosts of yesteryear.
In Ghosts and Haunts of Tennessee, I chronicled the ghosts of a certain part of Nashville, and in this journal I updated that chapter with supplemental information about the Hauntings of the Seven Hills. Overlooked in those articles was the venerable Longview Mansion, which has sat majestically on the corner of Caldwell Lane and Franklin Pike, since the 1850’s.
When it was originally built, it was not such a grand affair as one sees today. It began as a cozy four room, one story cottage, constructed by Henry Norvell and his bride Laura Sevier, the grand-daughter of the colorful frontier leader and first Governor of Tennessee, John Sevier. Today this modest manse boasts twenty-two rooms, eleven fireplaces, fourteen crystal chandeliers, and luxurious glass solarium.
It survived the Civil War more or less intact and in 1878 was purchased by James Caldwell, then president of the up and coming Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company. It remained in the Caldwell family through much of the twentieth century, undergoing several expansions and architectural redesigns. After a further change of owners it was ultimately purchased by the Church of Christ and is now owned by David Lipscomb University to serve as a special event center and administrator’s residence, while the LU soccer team uses the grounds for practice.
Having been in one family’s hands for so long and now owned by a decidedly Christian institution, not a lot of details abound about the alleged ghosts that haunt the house and grounds. In any case, genuine ghosts do not pop up on command for camera crews, much less for yahoos who go around in the dark with flashlights aimed at their faces scaring themselves.
It is thought that the origin of at least some of the alleged hauntings can be traced to the Civil War period. The house, on an eminence overlooking Franklin Pike, was in the thick of the Battle of Nashville on the second day (December 16, 1864) and the area about the mansion saw a great deal of bloody fighting.
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, a cannonball was found in the garden, a testament to the estate’s involvement in the battle. One of the family was moved to compose a poem about that memento of the war.
Whether there are any soldier’s graves remaining on the grounds is unknown, but not unlikely, given its location. After the battle, many Confederate dead were hastily dumped into mass graves on unhallowed ground, their names and the locations of their graves long forgotten. Their spirits are thus doomed to haunt the battleground to this day. The Seven Hills, the heart of the battleground, is awash in ghosts dating to the Civil War battle.
Second hand accounts of uncanny events in the house have circulated for years, although the Caldwell family have never spoken directly about such encounters. Given their long residence there, some of the resident spirits may well be family members. The mansion is so opulent and attractive, one could well understand why one might be reluctant to leave it, even for greener pastures.
One incident that has been given credence by those who know, happened a few decades back before the University took ownership of Longview.
The lady of the house at the time was playing the grand piano, just off the main entrance to the house, one day. It was a tune which she was fond of but which apparently did not meet with one of the resident spirit’s approval. As she was in the midst of the tune, a nearby lamp was knocked over by an invisible hand, falling to the floor with a crash.
In the Room where it Happened. Longview.
The lady of the house, aware of her permanent guest’s mercurial temperament and preferring not to upset the resident spirit, never played that song again.
As with the ghosts that inhabit nearby Belmont Mansion and University, the ghosts of yesteryear choose to linger beneath the enchanted eaves of Longview to moving on to another plane.
Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Groundsurveys uncanny accounts of the Mid-South, not just haunted houses and other spooks, but assorted unexplained phenomena from Spontaneous Human Combustion to Fortean Falls of Blood and Gore–and more!
The notion that what we call ghosts are material manifestations of a soul that has passed beyond the mortal veil is a nearly universal belief. Paranormal investigators routinely try to talk to these deceased persons, either to get them to stop haunting a place, or else to find out their identity. Occasionally they hear, or think they hear, a response. And who am I to say they have not succeeded?
Another theory, not necessarily opposed to the first, is that an apparition or presence which haunts a locale is, in reality a psychic “memory” bound to the spot where their trauma occurred in life, and that that entity is replaying a particular moment or event that happened at the time of their death, sort of like a metaphysical tape recording.
Old wood-frame buildings, with their solid hard-wood plank floors, seem particularly prone to this type of haint—a phenomenon tied to the ancient Druidic belief that a human soul could somehow occupy the heartwood of some types of trees—oak trees in particular.
But on our present sojourn into the Beyond, I would like to propose yet another type of haint; one that ain’t so common, nor so well known: one which you may have already experienced–but just didn’t know you had! The phenomenon goes by different names and conversely, other phenomena are sometimes confused with it; for want of a better term, let’s call them Living Apparitions.
I am not the first to take note of this phenomenon; accounts of Living Apparitions go far back into history. The idea is of ancient origin that, when we sleep, we exit this fragile jar of clay like a genie released from a bottle, to wander on the night wind.
Where we wander and why on the clear dark air, not even the wise can say for certain. But sleep is not the only time that one’s spirit may leave its physical shell and roam abroad, provided that the situation is urgent enough. That the soul may leave the body to travel abroad is something the ancient Egyptians taught in their schools of magic on the Nile and arcane books of sacred glyphs were inscribed with spells to guide the soul on its journeys. But I digress.
Even in modern times it sometimes happens that people have been visited by those they know, only to find that the person they thought they saw before them in fact lay far away at the time.
William T. Stead, a famed British investigative journalist during the Victorian Era, investigated several first hand experiences of living apparitions in England towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Stead relates one case of a Mrs. Talbot, of Buckinghamshire, who was having tea one evening when she sighted a neighbor, Mrs. Lister, coming up the path. Mrs. Lister was obviously distraught and seemed to coming for help. Yet when Mrs. Talbot went to the door to let her in, the visitor was nowhere to be seen. Intuitively, Mrs. Talbot knew things were seriously amiss at the Listers.
“There is something the matter with Mrs. Lister,” she said, “I am certain there is. Yoke the horse and we will drive over at once to the Lister’s house…and see what is the matter”
Her husband, a man of uncommon sagacity, knew from previous experience that it was futile to argue with his wife, made haste to harness the carriage and they hurried over to the Listers, whose cottage lay only a mile away.
There they found a scene of horror: Mrs. Lister was upstairs in bed, lying in a pool of blood, badly beaten. Her husband was nowhere to be seen, but they later learned that in a maniacal rampage he had savagely attacked her and then drowned himself in a nearby pond. The Talbots had arrived just in time to save Mrs. Listers life, and with prompt medical aid she survived the ordeal. In her delirium, she had imagined running for help, yet all the time lay immobile and unconscious. Had her “ghost” not paid the neighbors a visit, she would never have lived to tell the tale.
Stead, in his essay, relates several other accounts of persons whose apparition appeared to others remote in physical space from them. One thing uniting these diverse accounts of the living “ghosting” someone, seems to be a certain urgency on the part of those who appeared and that the person visited was in their thoughts at the time of the emergency.
Have you ever entered a new place and had the feeling that somehow you had been there before? Well, perhaps you had, as a Fetch or living apparition. Your ghost may be haunting someone or somewhere and you might not even know it.
We have an even better example of this phenomenon, a case based on first hand testimony which happened to a couple well known to American history.
It is a fact, not reported by modern academic historians, but was well known among their contemporaries, that General Ulysses S. Grant and his wife were both strong believers in the paranormal, due to their own experiences on several occasions over the years.
In the early days of the Civil War, Grant had had some trouble volunteering his services for the army. Although they were in dire need of experienced officers, the Regular Army would have nothing to do with him. However, the Governor of Illinois, who had an abundance of raw recruits but a shortage of officers to train them, had no such compunctions and Grant quickly rose to the rank of Colonel and then General.
In November of 1861, Grant was in charge of the Union command at Cairo, Illinois, in close proximity to large Confederate garrison lining the Mississippi River in Missouri and Kentucky. To forestall a Rebel attack and also to give Federal troops under his command a taste of combat, Grant organized an amphibious raid across the river to the enemy encampment at Belmont.
The main Confederate defenses in the area were actually across the river in “neutral” Kentucky, on the commanding heights of Columbus, where the Secessionists had emplaced 140 big guns, menacing any who dared come within range. Rather than attempt to take that formidable fortress, Grant had resolved to attack the smaller Rebel camp nearby at Belmont, Missouri. His troops were still green and he hoped an easy victory on the small camp there would prepare them for bigger fights to come.
At first, everything seemed to go as planned. The blue-clad troops debarked from the flotilla of steamships and made haste to attack the Rebel camp, while the gunboats Tyler and Lexington fired their heavy ordinance in a show of force. The Secessionists, as green as the Federal troops were, after a sharp initial fight fled their encampment in haste, leaving all sorts of booty to loot.
Grant’s plan had been to move on and secure the entire area, taking advantage of the element of surprise to eliminate all resistance. But his soldiers, still more civilian than soldier and ill disciplined, saw all the spoils of war in the Rebel camp—especially cooked meals ready to be eaten—and they abandoned all thought of the enemy and set to pillaging the Rebel camp and congratulating themselves. Even as the Union soldiers celebrated their incomplete triumph, the enemy was ferrying troops across the river from the Kentucky side and massing for a counter attack.
Soon the tables were turned and the Federal force was in danger of being surrounded. Grant tried to re-organize his panicked troops and make an orderly withdrawal, but when he went to look after his rearguard, he found they’d fled helter-skelter along with the other troops, leaving Grant an army of one with Rebel troops all around him.
Taking advantage of tall grass, Grant calmly led his horse around the advancing enemy columns until he got close to the shoreline. Then Grant made a mad gallop towards an awaiting steamboat, bullets whizzing past his ears all the time. Grant spurred his horse up the last gangplank and onto a departing boat, barely ahead of charging grey ranks, even as the steamer made haste to escape.
This much the histories tell us. But the rest of what transpired that day remains largely unreported, even to this day. Mrs. Grant’s memoirs, although known about for a long time, remained unpublished until 1975 and even since, Civil War historians have been highly selective in what they choose to use from her account.
On the same day that her husband led the raid against the enemy camp at Belmont, Julia Grant was busy packing her belongings to be with her husband at the border town of Cairo, Illinois. Grant had managed to organize the garrison there into something resembling order and located less rough accommodations for his family than had been the case when he first arrived.
That afternoon, Julia was busy packing her trunks in preparation to board the train for Cairo. In the mid of this flurry of activity, suddenly she had an overwhelming sense of foreboding take hold of her.
Julia could not understand why she should feel such dread and thought that perhaps she might be coming down with some disease. Unable to breathe and feeling like she might faint, Julia excused herself from her companion and made her way upstairs to lie down till the spell passed.
When Julia entered her bedroom, however, she was startled to see a vivid apparition. It was no ordinary ghost, but the quite real-looking image of her husband Ulysses.
Julia could see the general’s head and upper torso quite clearly, and the image seemed real enough. However, his upper body seemed to hang suspended in mid-air, with his lower body not visible. It seemed as if he were mounted on horseback, but with the rest of the apparition and background not visible to her eyes.
Julia intuitively sensed that her Ulyss was in grave danger, although she knew not why or how. What she did know was that the vision before her was quite real and very disturbing. Julia let out a shriek, and instantly fainted away.
When Julia awoke, the vision was gone, but her apprehension remained. Unable to account for this vision, Mrs. Grant made haste to get to Cairo, to see what danger her husband may be in. While on the train, Julia received word about the Battle of Belmont that her Ulyss had been in. At the train station she found Grant waiting for her and he seemed well enough.
During the ride to their quarters from the station, however, Julia told her husband all about her waking vision of him and her extreme apprehension for his well being as a result.
After listening to her story, Grant replied, “that is singular. Just about that time, I was on horseback and in great peril, and I thought of you and the children. I was thinking of you, my dear Julia, and very earnestly too.”
In his memoirs, Grant later confessed that throughout the war, he never felt so close to death in any other battle as he did that afternoon at Belmont. It was a singular event indeed.
The record abounds with similar incidents as the chosen accounts above. It is easy enough for the cynic to dismiss any and all such stories out of hand. Only those who actually experienced them first hand can know the truth of the matter, even if they cannot explain the how or why of them.
For his part, William Stead observed that, “if it can be proved that it is occasionally possible for persons at the uttermost ends of the world to communicate instantaneously with each other, and even in some cases to make a vivid picture of themselves stand before the eyes of those to whom they speak, no prejudice as to the…nature of the inquiry should be allowed to stand in the way of the examination of such a fact.”
The Living Apparition should not be confused with other phenomenon of a similar nature. For example, there is the belief in the “Doppleganger.” At its simplest, it is the belief that everyone, somewhere, has an exact double of themselves. Sometimes it is thought to be an evil twin who would do a person harm. Others believe they may come from some other dimension, whether for good or ill.
Another phenomenon similar in nature that has been reported from time to time is that of Bi-Location. This is where a living person is able to be in two places at the same time. Unlike the Living Apparition, the second is not a ghost or apparition, but the exact same person, only appearing far removed from their other self in real time and space. Bi-Location has most often been reported as happening to saints and witches, two very diverse categories, to be sure, but united by this one spiritual ability.
All of these and other similar paranormal activities ultimately lead one to the same question once posed by the wisest of the wise but never adequately answered: how can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all?
For more about General Grant and the paranormal, as well as other uncanny events of the Civil War, see Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War.
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