Civil War Ghost Trails

by Mark Nesbitt

  In 1882, the Murray family purchased the house. One by one the Murrays moved away or died and left the house in disrepair. By 1960, the Bradway family bought the property and began restoration of the house, opening it up for tours. In 1984, Leland French purchased McRaven and was the first one to live in it since the last of the Murrays went to a nursing home. He continued the tradition of opening it up to tours.

  Those who know the house well say that the room that Mary Elizabeth Howard died in is particularly active, perhaps haunted by the spirit of the young woman who was denied the opportunity of seeing her child grow up in the house. When her husband moved, he left her wedding shawl in the room where she died and those who picked it up said that it was hot to the touch, as if someone had just worn it and put it down. Others have had it snatched from their hands. Periodically visitors will see the apparition of a darkhaired teenage girl wafting down the stairway. She’s been seen in other areas in the house. Lights are turned on and off, evidence of a poltergeist. Or perhaps Mary Elizabeth just wants some attention.

  Civil War soldiers, many of whom were cared for or died in the house, have made their presence known in various ways in and around the house. John Bobb, murdered for defending his home, is believed to be the territorial ghost who roams the property, according to the website Haunted Places to Go. In addition to Mrs. Howard and John Bobb, some of the Murray family apparently still reside in the house, as well as a young slave boy and other soldiers from the siege.

  Leland French apparently had some violent encounters with one or more of the spirits of McRaven. A drawer was slammed so hard on his hand that it broke his thumb. In his own parlor he was shoved by some unseen hand hard enough to make him fall, hitting his face and breaking his glasses. He needed stitches around his eye. One night he was ascending the staircase and realized someone was following him. He turned and recognized from his archive of old pictures the long-dead Mr. Murray. French realized that what was going on in his house was beyond what he could handle, and he called in an Episcopal priest to bless the house. He then bought a small house down the street and moved out.

  While the house was open to tourists, one tour guide fell asleep on the couch between tours. When he awoke, the wraith of the cruelly murdered John Bobb stood glowering over him. The guide quit immediately. In spite of the house blessing, lights still flickered, doors still slammed on their own, and sightings of former owners continued. The security alarm would trigger after hours; inspections revealed that no one had entered the building. Chairs have mysteriously tipped and slammed down, armoire doors have opened and closed on their own, and beds are seen to depress as though people are reclining upon them, although no bodies are visible.

  The Mississippi Paranormal Society conducted an investigation of the house, reported on their website Mississippi Paranormal Times. For the seven hours they remained, they were besieged with evidence of a haunting. As they moved through the house to set up equipment, doors were slammed in their faces and behind them. Two of the team actually received scratches on their skin, indicating a spirit not at all happy about having them there. In the short time they investigated, they gathered fifty EVP samples and four video clips showing paranormal activity.

  Chickamauga

  If the Battle of Gettysburg ended the last Confederate invasion of the North and the fall of Vicksburg opened the Mississippi River cutting the Confederacy in half, the battles for Chattanooga, Tennessee, drove a saber into the very heart of the South.

  Trained, professional officers would rather maneuver an opponent into an untenable position than risk their soldiers’ lives in assaults. Union general William S. Rosecrans did just that when facing Confederate general Braxton Bragg. Marching his 70,000 troops through three gaps in the mountains, Rosecrans drove Bragg’s 43,000 troops into Chattanooga, then swung his troops to the south—as Bragg guarded the Tennessee River crossings to the north—and pried Bragg, in late August 1863, out of the major rail center of the mid-Confederacy.

  Bragg’s army reinforced, bringing 66,000 troops to the battlefield in northern Georgia that would be named after Chickamauga Creek, a Native American name that meant “River of Death.” The moniker would prove prophetic.

  Just after dawn on September 19, 1863, fighting broke out. The armies surged back and forth across four miles of ground, sometimes fighting hand-to-hand, staining the autumn fields with their blood. In their attempt to get between the Union Army and Chattanooga, the Confederates drove the Federals back to the LaFayette Road, which bisects the battlefield. On the morning of September 20, Bragg attacked again, but was stymied. Then, the Federals inadvertently brought destruction on to themselves. Around 11:00 A.M., Rosecrans heard from a subordinate about a gap in the Union line where a division was supposed to be positioned. The report was not true, but Rosecrans acted upon it by pulling a division from another part of his line to plug the mythical gap. His timing couldn’t have been worse, because just at that moment, Confederate troops commanded by Gen. James Longstreet struck the newly created gap, routing two Federal divisions. The rout became precipitous and eventually included Rosecrans himself and two of his corps commanders. Col. John T. Wilder’s brigade of mounted infantry, even though armed with Spencer seven-shot repeating rifles, could not hold back Longstreet’s juggernaut.

  Confederates took aim at Snodgrass Hill, to which the remnants of the Union Army retreated. Their repeated assaults were turned back by Federals desperate to hold and buy time while the rest of their army withdrew to Chattanooga. Fortunately they were commanded by a tenacious Virginian who remained loyal to the Union, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. For his role in repulsing the Confederates until dark, he earned the nom de guerre the “Rock of Chickamauga.”

  The Union Army continued its retreat into Chattanooga and Bragg’s Confederates pursued, gaining seemingly impregnable positions overlooking Chattanooga on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. The two armies left behind some 34,000 casualties, making Chickamauga the second-bloodiest battle in the entire Civil War.

  Chickamauga Ghosts

  A Civil War battle was horrifying enough. After the first shots were fired, chaos reigned and nothing was logical. The mind reels. Time takes on a life of its own, either rushing by or slowing to a crawl. For some it stops altogether. Humans survive or are transported in an instant to that gray land we all will visit sooner or later. The aftermath of battle is not much better. Death seems to appear in its most creative forms, like some modern artist gone mad, flinging bodies and body parts hither and yon, leaving unrecognizable lumps of flesh strewn or piled across once-pleasant fields and meadows. Add to that the wounded—moaning, crying, motioning to attract attention, and trying to crawl, with Death hovering nearer always. And then time passes and the spirits seem locked to these places of suffering, such as at Chickamauga.

  Women in White

  To the nightmare scenario come the women: wives, sweethearts, sisters, mothers, nurses. They have heard of the battle from miles away and have come to help or find a loved one perhaps hurt in the struggle. What they find is the carnage. Searching for an individual in a field filled with hundreds, or even thousands, of dead and wounded would seem an impossible task. The heart must break every time a body is turned over and the face is not recognized, or worse, unrecognizable. Still they moved with their lanterns, like living ghosts, through the horror, stopping, bending down to try and help or to recognize a bloody, mud-covered countenance; failing, and moving on.

  Perhaps this is why nearly every battlefield has a Woman in White story. And so it is with Chickamauga. She, apparently, was a young bride-to-be who lost her fiance to the hungry monster of war. No one knows if she ever found him, but if the dozens of modern sightings of visitors are true, sadly, she still seeks him.

  “Who is the young lady in the bridal gown with the lantern?” visitors inquire to perplexed park employees. The answer never comes or is circumspect because she really doesn’t exist—at least on this plane of life.

  Old
Green Eyes

  One of the truly more mysterious ghost stories of any Civil War battlefield is that of Old Green Eyes from Chickamauga.

  Visitors to the battlefield report seeing two glaring green dots peering from the woods. According to Georgianna C. Kotarski in her book, Ghosts of the Southern Tennessee Valley, one woman who worked in Fort Oglethorpe, the town nearest the battlefield, in 1980 was taking a shortcut through the battlefield in her car. Near the famous Wilder Tower she was confronted by a pair of green eyes, level with her own, and only about twenty feet from her. Her mind raced as she went through the catalogue of local creatures it might be—raccoon, deer, squirrel—but she realized none was appropriate to what she was seeing. Whatever it was frightened her enough: She sped off the battlefield and refused to use that shortcut again.

  “Old Green Eyes” has been seen in the area of the Wilder Tower at the Chickamagua battlefield.

  Stories of Old Green Eyes go way back. There were rumors from the 1870s that it would kill Union veterans visiting the park. It was said that bodies of men were found mauled by some large creature.

  Some theorize that Old Green Eyes might be a large cat (not the domestic variety) or a bear. Others speculate that it is one of the stone monuments come to life. There are those also convinced that the creature (or, some say, demon) predates even the battle, that some soldiers saw the ghoulish thing roaming among the dead and wounded. Old Green Eyes may have been left from the Cherokee days after they abandoned the area around the River of Death. As Kotarski sagely asks, “Was this ghoulish entity present long before the white man’s madness, part of a dark past lost to history? Or was it lured to the battlefield by the unspeakable horror of new death and despair?”

  According to paranormal investigator Gina Lanier, on the website HauntedAmericaTours.com, Old Green Eyes will sometimes approach you, and you will hear groans coming from the creature. Lanier writes that a park ranger related that in the 1970s, two different drivers crashed into the same tree in the park claiming to have seen Old Green Eyes. Lanier also gives the report of a man from New Mexico who claims that he saw Old Green Eyes on several occasions and even took a picture of the entity. He described the shape as a “black shadow-like human with a glowing face with a large nose,” and added ominously, “but it wasn’t human.” And it had glowing green eyes.

  Cryptozoologists might be interested in some of the other sightings on the Chickamauga battlefield chronicled in Kotarski’s book. A man recounted his experience as a Boy Scout camping in the park. He saw something large and hairy that started to cross the LaFayette Road near the Florida Monument. He described it as between 71/2 and 8 feet tall. It started walking across the road standing upright, and then it went down on all fours into a “gallop.” He thought it might be a grizzly bear because it was so tall, yet grizzlies are not endemic to the park. Or, perhaps, it was the legendary Old Green Eyes.

  Snodgrass Hill

  Other unexplainable events have occurred within the confines of the park as reported by Kotarski. Sounds out-of-time have wafted through the woods and across the fields. Drums rattled and fifes played for over an hour to the bewilderment of some Boy Scouts on Snodgrass Hill, where the Union rear guard held their ground far longer than soldiers should have been forced to hold.

  The boys investigated. As they approached the Snodgrass Cabin, a landmark on the battlefield, the martial music ceased and was replaced by another sound, just as confusing. It had started to rain, but the boys suddenly heard the distinct sound of footsteps of a dozen or so individuals rush away from them and enter the woods. One of the leaders took charge and explained that, for some reason, they were not supposed to be on that spot at that time. The boys left, their questions unanswered.

  Chattanooga

  After Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate victory at Chickamauga, disheartened Union forces retreated to Chattanooga. Confederates took positions overlooking the city on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The Federal forces were plagued by a supply line that was far too long, over inadequate mountain paths, and vulnerable to Confederate cavalry raids. It was only a matter of time before the defeated Union troops from Chickamauga would have to face their nemesis again or be starved out of Chattanooga.

  President Abraham Lincoln made several strategic moves that indicated he understood how important that section of the Confederacy was to the Union cause. First, he sent reinforcements, some 20,000 men under the command of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. While Hooker had been a failure as commander of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, he would soon resurrect his reputation as “Fighting Joe.” Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman arrived with an additional 16,000 troops in mid-November.

  Lincoln also made an important change in command. Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas replaced the demoralized William S. Rosecrans as commander of the Army of the Cumberland and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived to take overall command.

  One of the major problems facing the Union Army at Chattanooga was that 60-mile-long supply line. On October 27–28, in a daring riverborne assault, Union troops boated down the Tennessee River on pontoons and past Confederate batteries on Lookout Mountain to establish a pontoon bridge at Brown’s Ferry, significantly shortening what the troops named “The Cracker Line,” after hardtack, their food staple. With rations and supplies now readily available, Grant was ready to go on the offensive.

  Grant’s battle plan was to use Hooker and Thomas to threaten Bragg’s left flank on Lookout Mountain and the Confederate center on Missionary Ridge. Sherman was to cross the river at Brown’s Ferry and march to a point above Chattanooga, then cross the river again in pontoon boats to make the main assault on Bragg’s right flank. Once Sherman dislodged Confederates on that flank, he would roll south down Missionary Ridge, sweeping it of Confederates. Hooker and Thomas would pressure them from the front.

  Sherman’s march was slowed by muddy roads and the assault was postponed. Grant was vexed: One Union army under Ambrose Burnside was in Knoxville, Tennessee, about to be attacked; he also heard that Bragg was about to pull out from his position. Was he going to Knoxville?

  In order to ascertain if Bragg’s army was still in position, on November 23, Federal forces took 100-foot high Orchard Knob, an advance Confederate picket post. They determined the main Confederate Army was still in place on Missionary Ridge.

  Bragg’s position was formidable. Missionary Ridge rose 600 feet above Chattanooga. His left flank appeared even more impregnable: Craggy Lookout Mountain rose 1,400 feet above the river and would require an assaulting column to climb hand-over-hand in some places. At Missionary Ridge, Bragg’s men had dug in at the base in rifle pits. After Grant took Orchard Knob, they also began to dig in along the top of the ridge as well.

  Sherman began his waterborne crossing just after midnight on November 24. By dawn he had two divisions or about 8,000 troops on the southern bank of the Tennessee River, just above and below where the South Chickamauga Creek empties into it. Federal engineers soon had two pontoon bridges across the Tennessee River and Chickamauga Creek. In all, four divisions would soon begin an assault on the Confederate right flank of the Missionary Ridge line. At about 1:30 P.M. the attack began.

  Sherman’s problems began when the men reached the summit of what they thought was the northern end of Missionary Ridge. The terrain was deceptive. Instead of being a part of the main ridge, this crest was disconnected from it with none of the expected Confederates present. Beyond a saddle was another hill and the Federals began their climb through the misty afternoon to that summit. They finally found the enemy and drove them off. But they also found that they were still not on Missionary Ridge. With only about an hour of daylight left, Sherman halted and dug in, his mission for that day a failure.

  Hooker, on the other end of the line, around 9:30 A.M. on November 24, began his attack on fog-shrouded Lookout Mountain. Instead of assaulting Confederate troops head-on up the mountain, fighting the terrain as well as the enemy, Union troops adv
anced along the slope and struck the Confederates in the flank. The Confederates continued to fall back until they reached the Craven House. They attempted a final defense there, but as the fog lifted briefly, everyone saw that the colors flying over the breastworks at the Craven House were Union flags. Hooker’s sweep down the east side of Lookout Mountain was halted by darkness and the fog rolling in again. Most on the Confederate side had reckoned the mountain a natural, impregnable position. By late afternoon, Bragg was ordering what Confederate troops were left on Lookout Mountain to retire and join the rest of the army on Missionary Ridge.

  As foggy as November 24 was, the next day dawned bright and sunny, but cold. It wasn’t until 11:00 A.M., however, when Sherman continued his assault on the position before him. Midwesterners under Sherman attacked troops from Texas head-on. The Confederate commander facing Sherman was none other than Patrick Cleburne, the “Stonewall Jackson of the West.” He made a skillful defense of the area he named “Tunnel Hill” after the railroad passing through the mountain. Cleburne shifted his troops from one endangered area to another, utilizing the terrain to his best advantage. Cleburne’s tactics were to flank the dug-in Federals, then assault head-on, driving them back through the saddle until they themselves were finally stopped around noon. Union assaults resumed, and by 2:00 P.M. it seemed as if Cleburne’s defense was about to crack. Bolstered by reinforcements, he ordered an attack all along his line. By 4:00 P.M. the Yankees retreated, leaving Tunnel Hill to Cleburne’s Confederates.

  While this battle was raging, Grant thought he could relieve some pressure on Sherman’s flank attack by occupying the rest of the Confederates on Missionary Ridge. He gave orders for Union troops to take the lowest line of rifle pits, then halt and reform to prepare for the assault upon the ridge. The mere presence of Union troops in the rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge, he hoped, would be enough to draw Confederates from their defense against Sherman.