Civil War Ghost Trails

by Mark Nesbitt

  Periodically, state inspectors have come to check the kitchen and public restrooms. A female inspector once asked to see the men’s room. The manager said, go ahead, there’s no one here now. The inspector went back downstairs and heard water running in the men’s room. She came back upstairs to tell the manager, but the manager said, “That’s impossible. I’m the only one here. Go on inside.” So the inspector opened the door, and a huge cloud of what she described as “steam” came pouring out. She saw that the hot water was on as hard as it could go. But everyone in the Kenmore knows that the water down in the basement never gets hot enough to produce steam, and certainly not enough steam to create a man-sized cloud of mist. One must wonder if it was rather paranormal mist that the inspector witnessed.

  The historic Kenmore Inn in Fredericksburg was occupied by Union soldiers and used as a stable and a hospital.

  The same inspector was under the dishwashing sink. She thought she’d put her hand in water because it felt so cold. Upon reflection, she said it felt like someone had put a cold hand right on top of her hand. Of course there was no water or no one—at least no one visible—lying beneath the sink with ice-cold hands. Also, periodically, Gretchen will go downstairs to the kitchen and the gas burners on the stove will be turned on full-blast.

  Room 203, which is actually two adjoining rooms, had two different guests at two different times say that they felt like someone was stroking their hair. A woman was sleeping in the front room and her two children were in the back room in the twin beds. She woke up in the middle of the night and thought someone was sitting on her bed, perhaps one of her children. But when she looked up, she saw nothing. She went to see if one of her children had gotten up, but they were both still asleep.

  During the winter of 2005–06, Gretchen was walking down the handicapped ramp to get some wood for a guest’s fireplace. The lights on that side of the building were light-sensitive and had never worked. She hit a patch of “black ice” on the ramp and fell flat on her back. She got the wood and under her breath cursed out the owner, because he hadn’t fixed the lights. The next night she went out to get wood and the light over the ramp was working. It has never worked again. She asked around if anyone had flipped a switch or anything. All said no. One wonders if the original owner of the building heard her and wanted to ensure her safety the second time.

  In the fine-dining room, two of the candelabra fixtures in one of the chandeliers will periodically flicker. These are not the same chandeliers in the hallway that “flashed.” The lights will go for months and nothing will happen, then they will flicker again.

  Then, in May 2006, Gretchen heard something she’d never heard before in the Kenmore: disembodied voices. The first was a very deep, male voice, saying four or five words, coming from near the floor by Room 208. Then she heard a woman’s voice emanating from the stairwell in the kitchen leading to the first floor. She could not understand the words, but she was sure it was female.

  Several times Gretchen has used the back room as her own bedroom. She referred to the noises that older heating pipes make when the heat kicks on—kind of like a banging, metal-on-metal sound. She heard that sound coming from the floor of that room— clanking sounds, every night, coming from the floor. The room, however, is unheated and there are no pipes existing below the floor to make any sound.

  Chancellorsville

  After the Confederate victory at Fredericksburg in December 1862, Union general Ambrose E. Burnside attempted to maneuver Robert E. Lee out of his position. Bogged down on the half-frozen, sloppy roads, the effort was dubbed “The Mud March” and signaled to those in Washington that Burnside should be replaced as head the Army of the Potomac.

  In January 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker replaced Burnside. As soon as he took command, he reorganized the army and came up with a plan for a spring offensive that appeared to be perfect. It looked as if he would live up to the name he received when a newspaper forgot some punctuation: Fighting Joe Hooker.

  Hooker would send 10,000 cavalrymen to cut Lee’s communications with Richmond. While Lee was distracted by the cavalry sweep and part of Hooker’s infantry attacked Marye’s Heights, west of the city of Fredericksburg, the bulk of the force would march up the Rappahannock, cross it, and fall on Lee’s left and rear.

  Lee had sent Longstreet and his troops south to gather supplies and kept 60,000 men to face some 130,000 Federal troops. Hooker made his move at the end of April, sending Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps across the river at Fredericksburg to threaten Lee there, and fording the Rappahannock upriver with 40,000 men to land on Lee’s flank. Lee, his army in a precarious trap, did what became his trademark. He took the initiative.

  On April 30, 1863, Hooker’s main column, now numbering 50,000, with 100 artillery pieces, emerged from the Wilderness and arrived at a crossroads called Chancellorsville where the Chancellor family tavern and inn stood. But instead of pressing the advantage and securing all the lower fords across the river, much to the dismay of his subordinates, Hooker halted and waited for reinforcements.

  Stonewall Jackson arrived on the battlefield after riding through the night of May1. He ordered the first Confederates he found to attack the Yankees. His aggressiveness forced Hooker to fall back to a defensive position in the Wilderness. After planning a brilliant offensive maneuver and seeing it halfway through, Hooker was intimidated into assuming a defensive role.

  That evening, a momentous war conference took place. At the intersection of the Plank and Furnace Roads, two of history’s greatest commanders sat down and planned what has come to be known as one of the most perfect tactical battles in military history. Their war room was the wooded crossroads; their office consisted of two discarded hardtack boxes. For Robert E. Lee it would lead to his most brilliant victory; for Stonewall Jackson, it would lead to his doom.

  The Confederate cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart had brought intelligence that revealed Hooker’s right flank was “in the air,” with no natural obstacles, such as a river, anchoring the flank to keep it secure. Officers familiar with the Wilderness area were consulted, and a back road was located that would lead directly to the Federals’ flank. Sitting on his cracker box, Lee asked Jackson how many men he proposed to take. Jackson answered his entire corps—nearly three quarters of Lee’s entire army—would make the dusty march along wilderness roads to find the Federal flank, strike it, and roll it up like a rug. Lee would be left with only 14,000 men to face the entire Federal army. Lee thought for a moment, realizing the dangers if Hooker attacked while Jackson was marching. Ever the gambler, and with supreme faith in his subordinate, he gave Jackson orders to commence.

  Early on the morning of May 2, Jackson’s column wound its dusty way past the bivouac site of the night before. Lee and Jackson spoke while on horseback one more time. It would be their last meeting.

  Reports reached Hooker that a large column was moving across his front. At first he thought that Lee might be headed toward his right flank, but then convinced himself that Lee was retreating. He sent Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles’s Third Corps to attack what he thought was Lee’s rear guard. The action pulled more Union troops out of the main line, in essence isolating the Union Army’s Eleventh Corps—toward which Jackson’s attack was aimed.

  Hooker’s belief in Lee’s “retreat” was bolstered by Jackson turning his column away from the enemy not once, but twice. By 3:00 P.M., after a 12-mile march, Jackson’s men spread out on either side of the Orange Turnpike into battle lines stretching a mile. By 5:00 P.M., he was ready, his entire corps in position to strike an unsuspecting enemy. Jackson’s corps faced only two Union regiments and a few cannon pointed in his direction. The Yankees were busy cooking dinner.

  The Federals were lounging with their weapons stacked. Suddenly, rabbits, deer, and other small game burst from the forest toward them. Then from the darkening woods echoed the call of bugles and the yipping rebel yell, followed by sweat-soaked, wild-looking warriors plunging into
the Union campsites. Some Federals tried to resist, but they were swept away. The Eleventh Corps disintegrated.

  After two hours, Jackson’s assault ran out of steam and slowed to a halt. Jackson, in spite of the darkness, intended to continue his attack as soon as he could re-form his men. He wanted to cut off the Federals from their retreat routes across the river. His plan was to bag the entire Union Army and end the war here and now. He called up Gen. A. P. Hill’s division. As Hill’s men were replacing the exhausted troops in the darkness, Jackson and his staff rode out in front of the lines to find the Yankees. Satisfied he had found them, Jackson was returning when a nervous North Carolina regiment fired at what they thought was advancing Yankee cavalry. It was Jackson’s party. Stonewall was hit by three bullets and carried off the field under fire. A. P. Hill was also wounded, and J. E. B. Stuart was called from his cavalry duties to take command of Jackson’s Corps. Because of the difficulty in launching a night assault, and with very little information on the terrain or enemy, Stuart wisely postponed Jackson’s planned attack until the next morning.

  Stuart knew that Lee’s army was still divided and in danger and so devised a massive assault for dawn on May 3 to reconnect the two wings. In the meantime, Hooker began to consolidate his lines and ordered Sickles to withdraw from the high ground at Hazel Grove. Stuart immediately captured Hazel Grove and placed thirty cannons there. At 5:30 A.M., Stuart launched his attack down the Orange Plank Road, shouting to the men from horseback, “Remember Jackson!” Confederates slammed into the Union lines until 9:30 A.M. The woods caught fire and the wounded were cremated alive. The fighting in this area was some of the most intense of the Civil War. In just five hours of combat and within just a few square miles, some 17,500 men were dead, dying, or captured.

  During the fighting a shell struck one of the columns on the Chancellor House. Union commander Hooker just happened to be standing there. Though knocked senseless and, for all practical purposes, out of the rest of the battle, his final orders were clear: consolidate, fight defensively, and get the army back across the river as soon as possible. All the fight had gone out of “Fighting” Joe Hooker.

  Lee’s wing advanced from the south. Stuart’s column pushed forward simultaneously until Confederates swarmed around the Chancellorsville clearing. Just as Lee was about to drive the Yankees into the river, word came from Fredericksburg that Sedgwick had driven the Confederates from Marye’s Heights and was now closing in on Lee’s rear. Lee was forced to split his army yet again and send troops to stop the Yankees. They clashed at Salem Church.

  The next day in the fight at Salem Church, the rebels drove Sedgwick’s men back across the Rappahannock River. Lee was then ready to finish off Hooker’s army. But it was too late. The Union army withdrew across the Rappahannock under the cover of darkness on May 5, ending the fighting at Chancellorsville.

  The Federals suffered 17,000 casualties during the battle. Lee lost 13,000, but it was a higher percentage of his army. The incalculable loss was Stonewall Jackson. Complications from his wounds and amputation caused pneumonia to set in and he died on May 10, 1863. It was a loss from which the Confederacy would never recover.

  Lee’s amazing victory at Chancellorsville against overwhelming odds gave him confidence that his army was invincible. It was a false confidence that would be betrayed less than two months later at Gettysburg.

  Chancellorsville Ghosts

  In 2007, my wife Carol and I took investigative medium Laine Crosby to the Chancellorsville Battlefield to get her impressions. Laine had never been to Chancellorsville before and had no idea where she was on the battlefield.

  Bullock House Site

  Intent on protecting their escape routes across the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers after Jackson’s onslaught, the Federals formed a U-shaped battle line, studded with cannon, behind makeshift breastworks. The Bullock House became the apex of the final Union line at Chancellorsville. Although Lee was ready to attack again on May 6, Union commander Joseph Hooker had already retreated.

  Laine’s first impression at the Bullock House site was that there was a mix of people in this area: a mix of “gray and blue” and a mix of people on foot and on horses. She felt, however, that there were a lot more people on foot, meaning infantry.

  Before her was a broad open field, yet she said that she felt there may have been a house here, or a barn. “There may have been a place where they piled a lot of bodies,” she said. “There’s an obstacle right there,” she continued, pointing toward where the Bullock House once stood.

  We stopped in the field before Laine could see the park service interpretive signs. Laine said she felt “a lot of confusion, a lot of things happened here. Randomness, it’s mixed together. That group back there, they have bayonets. That group came from back that way,” she said, pointing towards the area from which Jackson’s men attacked.

  “Cannons!” she shouted. “Cannons ran through here.” She pointed to the intersection of Bullock Road and Ely Ford Road (Route 610), then over to Route 3. She paused to reflect some more. “They may have actually been sitting here, or pushed through here. There was more of a concentration of cannons here than out there,” she said, pointing to the area of the Visitor Center, through which Jackson’s infantry advanced.

  “I’m seeing mostly people running through there. The concentration of cannons seems behind me. The army came and it was like, well, it’s useless, because we could be shooting at our own men. So I don’t think that (the cannons) were fired, (at least) not at the time that they were brought, if that makes any sense.”

  According to Noel Harrison in his book Chancellorsville Battlefield Sites,between 1866 and 1868, thirty-five bodies of Federal soldiers were exhumed from the Bullock House area and taken to the National Cemetery in Fredericksburg. No doubt the bodies were gathered—”piled,” as she saw it. The “obstacle” she saw at the house can possibly be explained. On pages 13 and 14 of his book, Harrison quoted a Pennsylvania soldier: “At an angle in the breastworks lately constructed stood the White House.” As far as the confusion she felt, we know of course that all battles are a jumble of confusion. But in this particular area, the Union Army literally had its “brain” scrambled. General Hooker was trying to recover from being knocked senseless by a shell striking a column at the Chancellor House. The Union commander was lying in a tent at the Bullock House.

  Harrison’s Pennsylvanian described the confusion, shedding some light on Laine’s comments about the cannons: “Officers were coming and going in hot, important haste, some with reports, others with directions. Guns [cannons] hurried to position were crashing to their places.” The final Union defensive line formed a semicircle bristling with cannons. The Pennsylvania soldier again reveals what could possibly be an amazing coincidence, or an incredible statement on a psychic’s gift. He recalled what the area looked like in front of the breastworks and the Federal artillery: “The open ground in front covered about one hundred and fifty yards, dipped slightly in the centre and terminated in a sparsely-wooded crest.

  “In the timber on the crest was a Union line of battle, holding its regular formation, firing and loading with deliberation and slowly retiring.”

  This would explain Laine’s feelings about the cannons not being fired for fear of striking their own men.

  Last Bivouac Site

  The Last Bivouac site represents the spot where Lee and Jackson planned their most aggressive tactic of the war, which would lead to what is considered Lee’s greatest victory. Sadly, it would also lead to his greatest loss: the wounding and subsequent death of Jackson. The site also represents the place where Jackson would spend his last night on an earthly battlefield. If there ever was a Civil War site overflowing with lingering emotions, it would have to be the Last Bivouac site of Lee and Jackson.

  Lee and Jackson met around dusk at the junction of the Plank Road and Furnace Road. After being shot at by Yankee sharpshooters, they moved to the northwest corner of the junction, sat down on cra
cker boxes and discussed the battle and their options. An attack upon Hooker’s right flank was one of those. Confederate cavalry commander J. E. B. Stuart arrived with the information that Hooker’s right flank was “in the air.” Lee and Jackson discussed the details of an attack and then retired for the night, curled up on the damp ground.

  Before he lay down, Jackson unbuckled his sword and leaned it up against a nearby tree. One of Lee’s aides, Col. Armistead Long, awoke before dawn on May 2 to see Jackson warming his hands by a small fire. He brought Jackson a cup of coffee and sat to talk. Suddenly, there was a clatter of metal from the darkness. Jackson’s sword, so carefully placed against the tree just a couple of hours before, crashed to the ground with no human hand touching it. Apprehensively, Long picked it up and handed it to Jackson. Neither man, at the moment, said anything about it, but Long remembered it many years after the war, and knowing what he knew then of Jackson’s impending fate, considered it a harbinger of ill fortune. A commander’s sword falling to the ground untouched, pushed perhaps by the unseen forces swirling about a legendary Confederate commander may have changed the course of American history. It was one of those strange occurrences that men, upon retrospect, take as omens of a divine will that cannot be denied.

  Laine Crosby, during a preliminary field investigation in July 2007, illustrated how mediums can retrieve information from some unknown realm by some yet-to-be-explained method. She had never visited Chancellorsville before, had never been to the Last Bivouac site, and in essence had no idea where she was, yet she came up with information that could not have been in her conscious knowledge.