Civil War Ghost Trails

by Mark Nesbitt

  The Ghosts of Gettysburg headquarters in Gettysburg, believed to be home to several ghosts.

  Jeff Ritzman took this photo of a child’s shadowy apparition.

  Finally—but not really since the ghosts in Gettysburg are continually surprising us—a paranormal research group was given permission to stay overnight in the house to see what evidence they could gather. Along with recording EVPs and taking measurements of anomalies with various instruments, around 2:00 A.M. they became the target of the children in the house.

  They were in the front part of the house when they heard what they described as children laughing and playing in the back (the oldest section) of the house. They picked up their gear and moved to the back and set up their equipment, only to hear the children had moved to the front of the house. Again they chased the children, only to be disappointed again. Finally, one of the investigators set up a camera in the middle room and took a series of photos into the oldest section of the building, with excellent results.

  Vicksburg

  The National Park Service calls the Mississippi River at the time of the Civil War the most important economic feature on the continent. Certainly, it was a great waterway for advancing gunboats, heading north or south. Whoever held the Mississippi could split either country down the middle. And at the beginning of the war, the Confederates held the great river, cutting off the lifeblood of the Union.

  President Abraham Lincoln was familiar with the geographical importance of Vicksburg, Mississippi, a major city on a high bluff overlooking a bend in the river: He had navigated the Mississippi as a youth. He thought Vicksburg was even more important than New Orleans in opening the waterway. Taking Vicksburg would reopen the Midwest to world markets; it would also complete the naval blockade by closing the loop around the Confederacy.

  In the spring of 1863, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant started his army on a march down the west bank of the Mississippi River, over almost impassable terrain, creating bridges and corduroying roads when necessary. The plan was to rendezvous with the U. S. Navy at a place called Hard Times, Louisiana.

  On the night of April 16, 1863, the Federal Navy under Adm. David Dixon Porter began its operation to pass below Vicksburg and meet Grant. At the big bend in the river, they were spotted by Confederate lookouts. Bales of cotton on the shore were set afire to illuminate the river and Confederate batteries opened on the flotilla. Despite the bombardment and numerous hits from shore artillery, Porter’s ships made it past Vicksburg and headed toward Grant’s army to the south.

  Confederate batteries at Grand Gulf overlooked the proposed crossing point on the river. Despite a massive naval bombardment, the batteries could not be silenced. Grant, displaying the tenacity for which he would become known, moved his army farther south and crossed the Mississippi with 17,000 men at Bruinsburg.

  The first serious Confederate threat to Grant’s march inland took place at Port Gibson; however, 8,000 Confederates were no match for Grant’s force of 23,000. After fighting most of May 1, victorious Federal soldiers continued their march into the heart of Mississippi.

  Rather than heading directly for Vicksburg, however, Grant headed inland, determined to capture the Southern Railroad of Mississippi and cut off the major land supply route to Vicksburg. On May 12, Union forces defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Raymond and continued their march toward Jackson.

  As well as being the state capital, Jackson was an important rail and communications hub. Capturing Jackson would assure that Grant could squeeze off the flow of troops in his rear. So important was Jackson to the Confederates that President Jefferson Davis ordered Gen. Joseph Johnston to take command of the city. Once there, Johnston wired Davis, “I am too late,” and ordered the city evacuated. In a pouring rain on May 14, Union general James B. McPherson began an attack and drove what Southern troops remained back into the defenses of Jackson. William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops were also successful in their assaults, and Jackson was evacuated. The military necessity of not wanting to leave combat troops to guard Jackson forced Grant to burn factories, tear up rails, and destroy telegraph equipment. Grant then turned his army westward towards his real objective, Vicksburg.

  Every soldier knows it is better to fight a battle outside of your own perimeter than inside. Confederate general John C. Pemberton, in charge of the defense of Vicksburg, was aware of that as he marched his army to the east to meet Grant. On May 16, the two commanders engaged at Champion’s Hill.

  Federal troops, after hard fighting, took Champion’s Hill by 1:00 P.M. Later, Confederates won it back. A renewed effort by Grant’s overwhelming numbers drove the Confederates once again, and Pemberton withdrew from the field. Grant continued his march toward Vicksburg.

  Grant’s army defeated Confederates at Big Black River Bridge on May 17. Success after success made them seem unstoppable. Then they attacked Vicksburg’s formidable defenses and, on May 19, attacked Stockade Redan. Though they planted the United States colors on the works, the Federals under Sherman were repulsed, losing 1,000 casualties.

  Reconnoitering more carefully, Grant planned another assault for May 22. After a four-hour artillery bombardment, his troops advanced along a three-mile front. Federal flags were again planted on the outer works and there was a brief breakthrough at Railroad Redoubt, but the Union assault was repulsed, this time with a loss of more than 3,000. Grant knew that even with his resources, he couldn’t sustain those types of losses indefinitely. On May 26, Grant began siege operations, cutting vital supply routes into the city and digging approaches to the Confederate lines with the plan to tunnel under them and blow them up.

  Gun emplacements at Vicksburg National Military Park.

  By June 25, the charges were laid under the Confederate lines and detonated. Union troops surged into the huge crater formed by the explosion. Fighting raged, much of it hand-to-hand, for twentysix hours, until the Confederates finally drove off the Federal attackers. On July 1, another mine was exploded beneath the Confederate fortifications, but no infantry assault was launched. By then, five weeks of short rations, constant bombardment, disease, mounting casualties, and a lack of reinforcements convinced Pemberton that there was no hope in sight to save Vicksburg for the Confederacy. On July 4, 1863, he surrendered the city to Grant. As Lincoln phrased it, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.”

  On that day in Pennsylvania, Robert E. Lee was preparing his shattered army for retreat after their disastrous defeat at Gettysburg. Though fighting would continue another twenty-two months, the fate of the Confederacy was sealed.

  Vicksburg Ghosts

  Terry Winschel, one of my housemates from my days as a park ranger in Gettysburg, became an historian at Vicksburg. A couple of years ago, my wife and I visited Vicksburg, and Terry took me on one of those unforgettable tours of the battlefield. After realizing that the fighting at Vicksburg was every bit as savage and important to the war’s outcome as the fighting at Gettysburg, I asked Terry, “Why did Gettysburg get all the attention?” He said simply, “Two minutes.” I shook my head, confused. What two minutes in two huge battles could have made such a great difference in the notoriety of the battlefields? “The Gettysburg Address,” he said. If Lincoln had travelled to Vicksburg to deliver the address, essentially rededicating the nation to the unfinished business left before them, it would have been called the “Vicksburg Address” and the acclaim may well have gone to the city on the Mississippi.

  The other thing I asked him was about the ghosts of Vicksburg. Had he heard any good ghost stories? “Mark, I’ve been here thirty years and haven’t heard any about the battlefield. The town, yes. But not the battlefield.” Then, to test a pet theory, I asked him about the geology of Vicksburg. What was below us? “About 100 feet of Mississippi River silt.” Any granite? Apparently not for at least 100 feet.

  As I have mentioned before, one of the theories of how human emotion in the form of electromagnetic energy can be captured and then, under specific conditions, be
replayed is geologic: Quartz embedded in granite fieldstone can be affected by the burst of electrical energy when humans are killed or wounded. Most of the battlefields with plenty of ghost stories have the ubiquitous granite near the surface of the earth. Vicksburg obviously was different geologically. Yet, some have reported ghostly sightings on the battlefield.

  The Illinois State Memorial

  Ray Couch is one of the experts in the field of ghost research. He has hosted paranormal investigations all over the country, conducting experiments, and has visited many more sites purported to be haunted. Vicksburg was one of them. He brought about 20 people to the battlefield on October 13–15, 2006. His wife Sharon was one of them. Ray tells the story:

  On the Saturday of our weekend, we visited the battlefield with our group. We drove through the property and stopped as a group at several of the monuments. Our fourth stop was the Illinois State Memorial. As we made our way up the steps and entered the monument, everyone was respectful but in good moods. We began to read the names and I witnessed Sharon begin to become very quiet. Thinking she was having a moment, I left her alone, but shortly, I realized something was wrong. She began to seem out of sorts and began to shake. She caught herself against the wall of the monument and I had to help her back down to our car. She was actually crying and said the left side of her body felt numb. She said she saw a young soldier in her mind and saw him covered in blood. His eyes had a sad look and seemed to try to communicate with her. The feeling of his sadness stayed with her for the rest of the weekend.

  What Sharon experienced was empathy, or feeling the same physical hurt and emotional sadness the spirit of the young soldier felt at the time he had been wounded. Some sensitive people are clairvoyant (clear seeing), some are clairaudient (clear hearing), but all the human senses can be involved, including that feeling of empathy, not only for the living, but for those dead who suffered greatly before they died.

  The Pennsylvania State Memorial

  Ray Couch’s visit to Vicksburg illustrated another paranormal event that has been proven scientifically. He continues the story of his visit of October 2006:

  We visited the Pennsylvania monument late in the afternoon. We had about 15 people in our group and this was one of the last places we visited on the battlefield. We visited this location with no prior knowledge about the area. Waiting for everyone to get out of their cars, I became distracted by the feeling of being watched. We were the only people in the area, but the feeling was palpable. The feeling was coming from the wooded area behind the monument and it never left the entire time we visited here. Sharon refused to get out of the car. She felt a feeling of intense anger coming from around the monument and it shook her enough that she didn’t want to leave the car. Others in our group felt similar feelings and one lady got so scared that she actually got in our car and sat with Sharon. Later that day, we bumped into some other investigators on the battlefield. They asked if we had visited the Pennsylvania monument because it was one of their favorite locations on the battlefield. I asked why and they said there were tons of stories of people feeling overwhelming feelings of being watched or feeling threatened in that area. Some people even report that the faces on the monument seem to actually watch the visitors.

  Rupert Sheldrake, a renowned British biochemist who has written extensively about studying paranormal events scientifically, published a book in 2003 called The Sense of Being Stared At. In it he describes experiments he conducted placing people with their backs to a door in a room that had a window in it. A person would be told to relax or read. Periodically, an experimenter would look in at the person through the window. More times than not, the subject would turn around, aware that they were being stared at. Sheldrake tried it with a television camera pointed at the subject and a monitor into which an experimenter would occasionally peer. The results were the same. The subject would usually acknowledge when he was being stared at.

  We’ve all had the same thing happen: You suddenly feel as if someone is watching you from behind, and then you turn and see your spouse standing there. What happens, though, when you have exactly the same feeling, you turn around—certain you’re going to see someone—and no one is there? Is no one there, or just no one visible?

  Old Court House Museum

  Ray Couch related the following after visiting the famous Old Court House Museum in the city of Vicksburg:

  We visited the Old Courthouse Museum the day before we came home. Walking into the area, you just felt the history. The Courthouse is just so Southern, you almost expected to see Atticus Finch come walking down the stairs. The museum contains a large number of items from the Civil War and you will begin to lose track of time very quickly. Before we left, of course, I had to ask the staff if there were any ghosts still making themselves known. They actually had a surprising number of stories. There are footsteps that come from empty hallways. There is a Confederate soldier still seen walking around the cupola long after his tour of duty ended. Our group reported cold spots and EMF [electromagnetic field] spikes. We had to leave much too quickly, but I look forward to setting up an investigation here in the future.

  Several ghosts are said to be in residence at Vicksburg’s Old Court House Museum.

  The Soldier in the Fog

  Finally, Ray Couch wrote of an encounter of the visual kind in early 2008:

  About two years after our first visit, I returned to Vicksburg with a friend of mine. We were only in Vicksburg for a day, but I wanted to see the battlefield. The weather was cold and it was overcast and a light rain was falling when we visited the park. We quickly decided to just stay in the car and drive through the park. We were the only people in the area and were driving along at around 5 miles per hour. We were driving up Union Avenue near the Michigan Monument when a foggy area began to move off to the right side of the road. The fog was actually moving across the road and just seconds before we were going to drive into it, it began to take a shape. I swear it looked like a Confederate soldier crossing the road. He was dressed in grayish clothing and was carrying a rifle. As we drove into the fog, he lost form and just swirled away. Goosebumps popped up on my arms and I twisted around in my seat looking back. I never saw him again. I sat in my seat and didn’t say anything for several seconds, then I said, “I thought that fog looked like . . .” At this point my friend cut me off and said, “It looked like a Confederate soldier, I ran right into him. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid I was seeing things.” We drove around for another couple of hours, but never saw anything the rest of the day. That night, we were in a bar and had time to think about it. We both saw the exact same thing, including the fog just swirling apart as we drove through it. I know what I saw and I will never forget it.

  McRaven Home

  The McRaven Home on Harrison Street in Vicksburg is considered by many one of the most haunted houses in Mississippi—if not the entire country. Built in 1797, it was originally just a kitchen and room above. At that time it was used as a hiding place by Andrew Glass, a well-known highwayman who preyed upon travelers along the nearby Natchez Trace. One story has him wounded during an attempted robbery on the trace and brought back to his house. As the law closed in, Glass determined they would not get him, and he ordered his wife to administer the coup de grace within the walls of the tiny upstairs room.

  In 1836, Sheriff Stephen Howard purchased the building to live there with his pregnant wife Mary Elizabeth. He expanded the house by two rooms—a dining room with a bedroom above. It was in that bedroom that Mary Elizabeth gave birth to their first child and then died from the complications of childbirth. The sheriff raised his child alone in the house for a number of years.

  In 1849, John H. Bobb purchased the house. By 1863, during the Civil War, Bobb rented out the ground as a campsite for Confederates and saw his home turned into a makeshift hospital for those wounded during the siege of Vicksburg. The house was damaged by Union artillery and some believe that several soldiers died on the propert
y and in the house. When Federals occupied Vicksburg, they began indiscriminant looting of gardens for food, including John Bobb’s garden. He confronted them. The argument ended with Bobb using a brick on a Union soldier’s head, after which they took him out and shot him several times just 300 feet from the house. His grieving wife, Selina, sold the house and moved to Louisiana.

  One of the first ghost stories of McRaven comes from the Vicksburg Daily Herald of July 22, 1864, which reported that the spirit of a Confederate soldier who died in the house was seen by Union soldiers stationed there. He had manifested himself so clearly that the observer could see that he was “tall, gaunt, and hungry looking.” He appeared to have an area around his eye that had been mutilated and his head was bandaged. He was dressed in white—perhaps his winding sheets. According to the website for Mississippi Paranormal Times, he may be the same soldier who has been seen frequently “hovering” about the place more recently on the front porch and in the parlor.