Civil War Ghost Trails

by Mark Nesbitt

  The attack upon the angle would involve a headlong assault by column on the point with units on the right swinging in an arc to attack the side of the angle. But the pivoting tactic broke down as Confederates in the trench fired as one man into the maneuvering Yankees. Half a dozen officers from Ohio went down virtually immediately, along with many more rank-and-file soldiers. Though their organized battle plan disintegrated, the Midwesterners continued up to and into the trenches, where the fighting took on a savage nature: men were bayoneted, clubbed over the head with muskets, and hit with thrown rocks and logs. The fighting was face-to-face for a while, until the Federals withdrew to a swale just thirty or so yards from the angle and attempted to dig in using whatever they had— tin plates, drinking cups, bayonets, and bare hands. The fighting had lasted less than thirty minutes. Casualties for the Union troops amounted to almost 1,800 killed, wounded, and missing.

  Once dug in, the Federals faced the Confederate lines for another week. Corpses between the lines raised such a hideous odor that a truce had to be called to bury the dead.

  Kennesaw Ghosts

  In the broiling heat of a northern Georgia summer morning, Carol and I took a trip to Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield in June 2011. After staying overnight in a Marietta bed-and-breakfast, we took the short drive to Kennesaw Mountain. After seeing the National Park Service visitor center, we drove the first part of the battlefield tour, a winding trip up Kennesaw Mountain Drive to the parking area from which, even on a hazy day, the taller buildings of Atlanta could be seen.

  We passed the Pigeon Hill site and drove on to Cheatham Hill. We walked from the parking lot around some of the best-preserved earthworks I’ve seen on any of our national battlefields. This area was christened the “Dead Angle” by the participants. Stone markers along the way point out the sites where prominent officers were shot in the assaults and orientation maps explain the fighting. At what appears to be the apex of the Dead Angle, the land spreads out in a sort of a huge amphitheater, a long slope down to the woodline with several loop hiking trails around the clearing. I took numerous photos into the woods around the Dead Angle hoping for the elusive orb or even more elusive full apparition, but subsequent analysis of the photos on my computer revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

  However, I did attempt to get some EVP. Several attempts were made. Only one proved fruitful. Standing right in front of the Confederate breastworks I asked, “Union soldiers, men of Illinois, what was the attack like?” When I played the recording back, I got a one-word answer: “Murder.”

  Investigative medium Laine Crosby grew up near Atlanta on one of the battlefields over which Union and Confederate armies marched and fought. Before I met Laine, she lived a normal life in Atlanta. That is, until she and her husband visited Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield one hot July day. Laine was kind enough to write down their experience. I’ll let her tell the story:

  On a typical July day in Atlanta, Georgia, the blue sky turns to a white haze and you can fry an egg on the pavement, even in the shade. This mid-July day was no different except that my husband, Chris, and I decided to go for a hike, densely ignoring the three-digit temperatures.

  We drove north of Atlanta to Kennesaw Mountain, two hills forming a lush respite, seen for miles around, and now owned by the National Park Service. As a native Atlantan, the great Confederate history of Kennesaw Mountain is not lost on me. As a teen, I had given memorial services for Capt. William Allen Fuller, who chased and apprehended Union spies at Kennesaw Mountain in the great locomotive chase of 1862. And I now enjoyed my runs up the mountain trail, where Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign began in 1864, ending in a defeat for the Union at this location. But as much as I liked to imagine what it would have been like to share in these fateful days, history was not on my mind as I set out for a leisurely hike this afternoon with my husband.

  Upon entering the battlefield park, we drove to the Cheatham Hill parking lot and began our journey on foot. We walked about fifty yards through the woods, passing the historic breastworks, when the thick woodland suddenly opened to a bright grassy field. Although the searing breeze offered no comfort, it painted the meadow before us with different shades of green as it whipped in various directions, and surprised a hidden hare. We walked downhill, about the distance of a football field, until we reached a forest of water oaks. We rested on the banks of a trickling stream for a bit, under the shady trees, and soon decided it was too hot for human life.

  Motivated by the thought of air conditioning, we walked on the slight path, through the middle of the field, toward the car. Although the park had been crowded just an hour before, we now had the meadow to ourselves. We made our way two-thirds up the hill, walking and talking, when suddenly there was no breeze. Then abruptly, Chris was silenced as we entered a bone-chilling coldness that stunned our half-baked senses. It felt like we walked into a freezer, with a temperature of not more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

  I had a distinct feeling of being a bit off balance, as if my usual perception of the world was no longer available to me. Without looking at each other, Chris and I began to walk more briskly through the lingering chill, which followed us about thirty feet, until we simultaneously began running. We were back in the hundred degree heat, running through the woods, past the breastworks, and not stopping until our Chevy Blazer was safely protecting us— or so we wanted to believe.

  We drove the half hour back to the city in complete silence that day. As we parked the car in our garage, I looked at Chris and asked, “You felt that, right?” And still without meeting my eyes, he replied, “Yes, we felt that,” and we did not speak of the occurrence for many more years.

  Marietta

  Marietta, Georgia, is the closest town to Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield. In September 1863, Mrs. Jane Porter Glover donated part of her Bushy Park Plantation to become the resting place for twenty Confederate soldiers, victims of a train wreck north of Marietta. A few more Southern soldiers were buried there in the ensuing months. But when the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain resulted in hundreds more Confederate dead, they were brought to what is now known as Marietta Confederate Cemetery.

  It wasn’t until after the war that the cemetery saw its greatest expansion. In 1866, Catherine Winn of the Ladies’ Aid Society and Mary Green from the Georgia Memorial Association organized women from Georgia to search for and recover the bodies of hundreds of Confederates killed at Kennesaw, Kolb Farm, Chickamauga, Ringgold, and even farther north. Eventually, more than 3,000 soldiers from every state in the Confederacy (as well as Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) rest in the Marietta Confederate Cemetery.

  More than three thousand soldiers are interred in the Marietta Confederate Cemetery.

  Adjacent to the Confederate Cemetery is the Marietta City Cemetery where generations of residents of Marietta lie buried— some not so peacefully.

  One of the more interesting, if not nerve-wracking, jobs is that of sexton of a graveyard. In the past, the sexton’s job entailed not only caring for the graves and tombstones in the cemetery, but often digging the very graves into which the recently deceased would lie, hopefully, for all eternity. Sextons spend a lot of time with the dead and sometimes witness things they’d rather not.

  The city sexton in 1895 reported seeing ghosts in the cemetery. Sexton Sanford Gorham reported being watched as he worked in the cemetery by a man dressed in black. The man was standing in an open area of the cemetery, and so when Gorham approached him he had full view of the man the entire time. As Gorham closed on the man in black, he simply dematerialized in front of the sexton. Gorham realized that there was no place for anyone to hide and thus concluded he had seen a ghost.

  And apparently, the ghosts of the Marietta Cemetery weren’t through with him yet.

  Several years later, Gorham had entered the cemetery on a dreary, rainy day. As he was going about his work, he noticed near a fresh grave a woman, dressed in black, standing and apparently mourning. Again he felt the need to approach the person; pe
rhaps he could lend assistance. He walked through the dewy grass, leaving his own footprints in the moisture. But by the time he arrived at the fresh grave, the woman was no longer there. Though inured to strange things happening from working in a cemetery, it must have sent a chill up his spine to realize that it was possible the woman was contemplating her very own commitment to the earth below her feet. He looked about but saw no footprints leaving the gravesite like his own made as he approached it.

  With no other evidence as to where she might have walked, the only conclusion is that she returned to her own grave.

  Another Lady in Black has more tangible historic roots. In 1906, Mary Annie Gartrell, a refined musician who lived in Cobb County, Georgia, during the Civil War, died and was buried in Marietta City Cemetery. Later a lovely monument with a winged angel was erected above her grave. The cold stone carving above her grave was not the only angel associated with Mary Annie Gartrell.

  Her sister Lucy, ten years younger than Mary Annie, never forgot. From the time of Mary’s death, twice weekly—and sometimes more often—her loving angel of a sister visited her grave from Atlanta, always in black mourning dress. She came so often wearing that long black dress that people who didn’t know her recognized her as the Lady in Black. For some thirty-eight years she visited to reflect, perhaps to play over in her head some of the favorite songs her older sister had played for her and taught her, to recall pleasant memories of growing up in Atlanta with the sister she so loved. Then, in 1954, Lucy died, and, after that, visits from the Lady in Black became more infrequent.

  The Lady in Black has been seen around Mary Annie Gartrell’s grave in the Marietta Confederate Cemetery.

  I say infrequent because they apparently didn’t stop altogether. Occasionally visitors to the Marietta City Cemetery, while they are becoming engulfed in the rich history of the site, will look over to the winged angel statue over Mary Annie’s grave. As their eyes travel down the monument, they will see, moving from behind the stone shaft, a figure gazing solemnly at the grave below. Though it may be summer and hot as blazes in Atlanta, the visitor is not dressed in light, cool summer attire, such as are worn by necessity in that part of Georgia. As the lone figure emerges from behind the statuary, it can be seen that she wears the long, black dress of one in deep mourning from a century before.

  Franklin

  Some historians blame the results of the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, fought November 30, 1864, on Confederate general John B. Hood’s desire to teach his soldiers a lesson in offensive moxie. Others think he’s been given a bad, and possibly historically inaccurate, legacy. Whatever was on Hood’s mind when he ordered the massive frontal assault on Union defensive works at Franklin may never be known. What is certain, however, are the casualties for the Confederate Army of Tennessee: six of its finest generals and 7,000 of its bravest men.

  Hood had lost the use of his left arm at Gettysburg and had his right leg amputated after being shot at Chickamauga. The rigors of army life certainly presented a personal challenge. Indeed he was upset on November 30 at the fact that his officers, after receiving his orders, which would have entrapped Gen. John M. Schofield’s Union army at Spring Hill a few miles south of Franklin the night before, did not follow through. Hood also realized that Schofield was only fifteen miles from the solid defensive works around Nashville, and if he made it there, he would be almost impossible to dislodge. There was little choice: attack Schofield on the afternoon of that day or watch him escape.

  Some 30,000 Union troops had established a defensive line to the south of the town of Franklin, which rests within a bend of the Harpeth River. Both flanks were anchored on the river and inaccessible to attack. They had thrown up breastworks and field obstructions in almost record time while utilizing some works that had been built a year earlier. They were sending wagons across the river toward Nashville as fast as they could.

  To Hood, an immediate frontal assault was the only option. His officers objected: A large portion of the army was still not up, including much of the artillery; the late fall sun would set early, not giving them much time to follow up on any advantages they might gain; and frontal assaults against entrenchments were nearly suicidal. Hood ordered the assault anyway. As Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne said to Hood after receiving the orders, “We will take the works or fall in the attempt.” It was prophetic.

  That afternoon, some 22,000 Confederates began their march across a two-mile open plain toward the Yankees ensconced behind earthworks. For the first time anyone could remember, their bands played martial music—“The Bonnie Blue Flag” and “Dixie”—while they advanced.

  There was an irregularity in the defensive disposition of the Union line. Two brigades were positioned in a V shape about 1,500 feet ahead of the rest of the Union line, with the apex on the Columbia Pike facing the attacking Confederates. At first it was supposed to be temporary, but soon orders came to hold the position to the last man; file-closers were to fix bayonets and those leaving the ranks would be shot or bayoneted. The men frantically began digging in. Soon they realized that both flanks of the V-shaped line were exposed. As the flank would be exposed in the middle of the field, the men feared a tragic mistake had been made. As well, if the Confederates overwhelmed the first line and the Union soldiers began to retreat toward their main breastwork, they faced the distinct possibility of being fired upon by their own men if they got intermingled.

  As the long lines of Confederates advanced, it must have felt to these two brigades that they were supposed to hold out against the entire rebel army. As it was, they fired only five or six shots before the Union soldiers at the salient near the Columbia Pike attempted to engage in hand-to-hand combat, but were driven back by the sheer weight of numbers. The rest of the line crumbled and began to race the Confederates back to the main line. That was when the Confederates got a good look at the defensive line they were supposed to overwhelm.

  A Tennessee sergeant observed that a “chevaux-de-frise” made up of locust bushes with sharpened limbs was laid out about forty feet in front of the Union breastworks. The works themselves consisted of a ditch in front with the excavated dirt thrown up to make the works capped by head logs of green timber with a space through which the men could fire without exposing themselves. The Confederate attackers, mingled with the few Union soldiers from the advanced line who couldn’t outrun them, were a mere hundred paces from the main line when the Federals stood almost as one and fired.

  Cleburne was seen riding his horse diagonally from left to right, through the lines of men when his horse was killed. His momentum took Cleburne almost to the outer ditch of the breastworks. An aide gave him his horse, which was killed by a cannon shot coming from near the Carter cotton gin. Cleburne continued forward on foot, waving his cap. Shortly after that he was killed.

  The office at the Carter House in Franklin is still pockmarked with bullet holes.

  Confederate Brig. Gen. Hiram B. Granbury was midway between the advance line and the main entrenchments when Cleburne’s aide heard him from ten feet away encouraging his men: “Forward, men; never let it be said that Texans lagged in the fight!” They were the last words he said.

  The weakest point in the Union line was where the Columbia Pike entered it. It was here that the Confederates broke through. The problem for them was that there was yet a third Union line about 200 feet away, just in front of the Carter House and along the line of the Carter office and brick smokehouse.

  Some made it to the Carter outbuildings and hid behind them. A few tried to cross the garden but were shot down. A Federal hid in the smokehouse and claimed he counted seventeen separate Confederate assaults attempting to break the Union line. One Union officer noted that a rebel body was lying between the barricade near the outbuildings and the main house

  In the meantime, the fighting at the second line became savage. The opposing forces held the opposite sides of the same earthworks. The men were packed so closely that the front rank did nothing but fi
re weapons that had been reloaded by the rear ranks and handed forward. Union soldiers tilted their muskets over the head logs and pulled triggers; Confederates on the other side took bayoneted muskets from their comrades and threw them, spear-like, into the packed Federals on the other side of the head logs. Bodies piled up on either side of the earthworks until men stood on the dead and dying to fight.

  To the east of the Columbia Pike, Carter’s cotton gin, 240 feet from the road behind the Union entrenchments, represented a landmark on that section of the battlefield. In that area two Union regiments were armed with breech-loading repeating rifles; one company carried the sixteen-shot Henry Rifle. Once the Confederates gained the ditch, they were subjected to that flank fire from the Federals. Participants remembered seeing opposing rifle muzzles pass each other and fire; Union soldiers who lifted their rifles above the parapet to fire had their hands shot off. Osage orange bushes with thorns were used as impediments to attackers. Confederates who had gotten hung up on these chevaux-de-frise were shot over and over, hundreds of times, according to one observer. Officers who went down wounded were shot again and killed. Many of the unwounded Confederates, once they reached the ditch, were too exhausted to go forward. Retreat across the plain was suicide.

  Heavy fighting raged around the smokehouse on the Carter farm.

  The men in the ditches in front of the Carter House sector continued taking enfilade fire from the Federals near the cotton gin where the Union line was bent back. The Confederate dead piled up by the score.