by Mark Nesbitt
The camp where the guards and the rest of the reenactors were located seemed a hundred miles away. The battlefield is a very dark place at night and the roads that wind through the various sites of hideous combat can be very lonely. She didn’t want to look again in that rear-view mirror, yet still, from somewhere, came that rhythmic, continuous tapping, tapping. Suddenly, ahead of her through the fog, were campfires. It was the encampment. She swerved into the driveway and up to the guard at the gate. Still apprehensive about the timeless cargo she thought she was carrying, she quickly asked the guard if there was anyone in the bed of her truck. He answered no. Had any reenactors been seen jumping out and tumbling to the ground as she sped to the guard shack? Again the answer that belied reality and confirmed the paranormal. No. There had been no reenactors jumping from the swiftly moving truck.
If it were only that easy to peer into a looking-glass and see across time at soldiers so wearied by combat and the heavy burden of being caught forever in a certain place at a certain time, that they are willing to take a ride on so strange a horseless wagon.
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Chapter 5: Alone In Hell
A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head…
—Dylan Thomas, “Love in the Asylum”
The summer that seemed to have no end in Gettysburg finally passed. The gathering of the wounded was over. The burying of the dead (then reburying, after the rains had washed open the shallow graves) went on and on through July, then August, then September, and October 1863.
First, the noble dead were gathered together and interred near where they fell. Soon, however, local farmers were saddled with the onerous task of caring for the graves when the weather exposed a grisly body part or when animals disturbed the final slumber of some unfortunate son of the North or South. They also had to plow around the makeshift sepulchers. It wasn’t long before the cries went up to the state capital in Harrisburg to find a better resting-place for these men. The price the soldiers paid for their little bit of Pennsylvania real estate apparently wasn’t high enough for the local farmers.
Gettysburg attorney David Wills was authorized to purchase land for the re-interment of the sainted—but unwanted—Union dead. He looked to Cemetery Hill, where the Evergreen Cemetery was already located, and bought land. Soon, the work of exhumation was begun and the farmers were much happier.
On through the autumn the gravediggers worked, with their long iron hooks, going through the soldiers’ pockets for any indication—a letter, an engraved watch, a rare identification tag—that might tell who these crumbling shells once were. Carefully—when they could—they lifted the ragged, sodden uniforms from the earth and placed them into wooden coffins, then carried them to Cemetery Hill, there to be laid in a giant semi-circle, feet facing inward. Attorney Wills realized that a new cemetery, especially one containing so many soldiers, would need a dedication. Acclaimed orator Edward Everett accepted the invitation to speak, but requested that the October date be extended to November. The 19th of that month was agreed upon.
With the main orator scheduled to his own convenience, Wills then wrote to the President of the United States—some six weeks after Everett’s invitation and just two weeks before the event was to occur. As one of the commissioners remembered long after, “the question was raised as to his [Lincoln’s] ability to speak on such a grave and solemn occasion.”
Wills’ invitation to Lincoln clearly tells Lincoln his place in the ceremonies and indicates the concern of the commissioners that he might, if allowed to speak too long, say something foolish: “It is the desire that after the oration, you, as Chief Executive of the Nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks.”1
Of course, Lincoln could not have chosen any more appropriate remarks than those he did choose. Everett spoke for two hours; Lincoln for less than two minutes. It is one of the curiosities of the American character that the shorter speech is the one most remembered and most beloved.
Lincoln spent the night polishing the address in the front bedroom of the Wills’ house. He spoke briefly to a crowd gathered below then went back to work honing and fretting over the two-page speech. Much was on the line, and Lincoln knew it. He had been accused of making crude jokes while touring the Antietam Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland, the autumn before. One can only wonder what marvelous, worrisome energy poured out of this inherently melancholy man as he worked the words with which he hoped not to merely dedicate a cemetery, but to rededicate a war-weary nation to continue the sacrifice for a higher good. One can only wonder as well, with Lincoln’s own predisposition toward the paranormal, and the intense emotional energy expended in that building, whether some of the martyred President remains.
The David Wills house on Lincoln Square
There is a lock of Lincoln’s hair encased on display in the Wills’ House Museum. Karyol Kirkpatrick, a psychic, visited the house in 1994 and was taken to the lock to feel the psychic vibrations from the monumental human being to which the hair once belonged. Of all things in Gettysburg associated with Lincoln, surely this must contain some of the vital spark that was once within the man. She passed her hand over the relic, once, twice, again, and turned to shake her head: nothing. She felt no power or energy coming from a most rare and intimate item associated with Abraham Lincoln.
Of course not. The lock was taken from Lincoln’s head during the postmortem examination—the autopsy—after John Wilkes Booth’s lead Derringer ball had carved its savage way through Lincoln’s brain, taking with it all that was the man on this earth. When told where the lock had come from, Karyol smiled and nodded. That’s why she felt nothing from the hair—Lincoln was already dead, his spirit on another journey, when this small bit of him was clipped.
Lincoln has been seen, heard, and felt, of course, walking the halls of the White House in Washington, D.C., dozens and dozens of times and documented by such no-nonsense people as Grace Coolidge and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and that noted cynic from the “Show-me” state, Harry Truman. Valets and secretaries to other presidents have literally seen Lincoln, as did Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.2
Those who work at the Lincoln Room Museum swear by the evidence they occasionally hear, that Lincoln revisits Gettysburg too. When there are no visitors in the building, attendants in the reception room of the Lincoln Room Museum hear the rhythmic creaking of the wood floors in the bedroom and in the museum room itself, as if someone were composing a piece of writing—or perhaps practicing a speech out loud—and pacing back and forth while doing so, or standing to walk and stretch from being hunched over a desk and paper too long.
Apprehensively, the attendants will walk into the museum room to see for themselves if a visitor they had missed had come in. They also check the Lincoln bedroom, only to find that they are seemingly alone—physically alone, at least. No one apparent to the human eye is with them.
Some who have rented the apartment on the top floor of the Wills’ House have heard it as well: the footsteps on the floor below, late at night or early into the morning hours, after the museum has been long-closed, and even the center square of Gettysburg is quiet.
On November 19, 1863, the parade to the cemetery began in front of David Wills’ home, on the “diamond,” the name for the center square of town during the 19th Century. Anyone familiar with Gettysburg knows that it only takes 15 minutes to get from the square to the cemetery on the outskirts of town—and that’s on horseback. So it was then.
In the little vale between what locals call Baltimore Hill and Cemetery Hill, sits a house Lincoln and the entourage rode past on that morning. From its location between the opposing Union and Confederate lines during the battle, the building witnessed not only the passing of a great President but had seen the comings and goings of both Federal and Rebel during and after the battle. And it seems that there have been some more recent comings and goings as wel
l.
The lovely, balconied house had been built in 1819, and remarkably, its appearance has hardly changed in over 175 years. During the battle, no doubt, Confederate skirmishers were actively engaged in and around the house. After the battle, when the Confederate line retreated from the town, Union soldiers cautiously entered the yard and probably explored the house. The building even appears in historic photos taken four months later, showing President Lincoln riding to deliver the Gettysburg Address.
The procession to the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, November 19, 1863. (Library of Congress)
At the time of the battle, the house was part of John Winebrenner’s tannery. After it had remained a private residence for many years, it became a business once again: an art gallery in the 1990s. One of the people working in the gallery had decorated the mantle in the front room with figurines—cold-cast canteens, small figures, toy soldiers, and antiques—setting them “just so,” the way she thought they looked best. She would lock up at night, but when she returned early the next morning to reopen, the soldiers, canteens, and other militaria had been rearranged. Carefully, she placed them back in the order in which she wanted them.
A week or so later as she was opening the gallery, she noticed that the figures had been rearranged again. She began replacing them the way she liked them. But while she was rearranging them she got what she described as a “cold, cold, cold, damp cold” feeling on her right side, even though it was a sunny, warm morning. While she was working at the mantle, her eye was drawn to the one door at the far end of the house—a door they never opened, and kept sealed for security reasons. There she saw, coming through the closed, solid door, the figure of a man. Astounded, she watched as he slowly materialized, his foot and leg and the front of his body first, then his profile, then, slowly, his back. She described him as wearing a short cape over a long, gray-blue coat. He wore high boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and a full, chest-length, brown beard. In his hands he carried gauntlets. As soon as he had passed completely through the door and entered the room, he disappeared. A few days later, she returned in the morning to open the gallery and noticed that her display on the mantle had been rearranged again and began replacing them. She looked apprehensively toward the sealed door, but saw nothing.
Once again, in another week, the soldiers and militaria had been rearranged. It was getting to be old hat: the mantle was rearranged repeatedly sometimes twice a month or more, almost as if someone disagreed with her tactical arrangement of the tiny troops in the battle of the mantle. It was a cold, overcast morning this time as she began to set up her display again. Suddenly she felt the chill begin to increase in intensity and looked hesitatingly through the house to the sealed door. Again, into the house came the figure she had seen once before, striding through a solid door, dressed in the uniform of a Civil War-era soldier, only to disappear once more before her eyes. She said that she felt no fear from his presence—although she admits to having been in houses where she had been very fearful of something present yet unseen. Instead, these times she felt that he seemed to be just “striding through, ready to do something.”
Her daughter also had an unnerving experience. She was standing in the newer section of the house during a quiet time of the day. Suddenly she had a feeling that someone was watching her. She turned and looked toward the original front door of the old part of the house—the door on the south side of the structure—and there to her amazement stood a soldier dressed in a “cream-colored, butternut uniform,” with long reddish or auburn hair and a scraggly beard and moustache. She described him as wearing a floppy, sweat-stained, butternut-colored hat. She saw he had a blanket roll on his back, attached across his chest with what she thought were canvas straps. He was very skinny and gaunt and very pale. She saw that he carried a long rifle, “almost as tall as he was,” which seemed to her to be a good six feet. They stood and gazed directly into each other’s eyes.
She recalled that it seemed he stood there for minutes, his direct gaze piercing hers, although upon reflection, it may have been only 15 or 20 seconds. As he looked directly at her she said he wore an expression of extreme sadness in his eyes—so sad, in fact, that she actually felt his sadness. “It looked,” she said, “as if he’d really been through hell. He just looked at me as if to say, ‘please help me,’ or ‘please feel sorry for me.’“ She said she didn’t feel threatened, just sad. Suddenly he was gone, dematerializing before her eyes.
Occasionally after that, she felt his presence, but never saw him again. But whenever she felt his presence, she felt safe, as if he were watching over her. One other feeling she had was that she felt as if he was “trapped” in the old kitchen area and could not move into the newer section of the building where she was.
Finally, after they sold the house, an insurance company bought it and began using it as offices. One of the female employees was working late one night, upstairs. She distinctly heard the door open and close; she heard footsteps moving around downstairs. At first she assumed it was her boss who had stopped by to pick up some work, since she knew all the doors had been locked. But the footsteps moved around rather aimlessly. Finally, she decided to go downstairs since she had a couple of questions for her boss anyway. As she descended the stairs, she heard the footfalls cease. As she reached the first floor, she realized that there was no one on the first floor. She quickly grabbed her work and bolted out of the door.
Two soldiers: one Union and one Confederate, one who may be stuck in time and locale, and one who may just be passing through. Both, seemingly having seen enough horrors when they were alive during the Civil War to wonder if they had been mistakenly ordered to Hell instead of Gettysburg, continue to visit, for some unresolved reason, the lovely old house on Baltimore Street.
Today, the building is Mr. G’s Ice Cream Shop.
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Chapter 6: Hell Is For Children, Too
Thus she spoke;
and I longed to embrace my mother’s ghost.
Thrice I tried to clasp her image,
and thrice it slipped through my hands like a shadow,
like a dream.
—Homer, The Odyssey
The horror of Gettysburg did not end on the battlefield.
Like some insidious, ever-expanding plague, the effects of the thousands of casualties left moaning on the battlefield spread to virtually every large city and small crossroads in America. As the long lists were published in newspapers, mothers would kneel, pull their children to them and tearfully whisper, “Papa’s not coming home from the war.” The agony was cruelly non-partisan. North or South, it didn’t matter. “He was killed at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania,” was repeated over and over, before crude firesides and elegant marble mantles all across the country.
After two years of war, death was epidemic. Mothers were helpless without the meager money sent home from their soldier-husbands, and at a time before women worked out of the home. What to do with the children orphaned and impoverished by this immense unholy war?
A temporary solution was found when a mystery was solved.
Shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, the stiffening corpse of a Union soldier was seen hunched in a sitting position near the railroad in an overgrown field where Stratton Street and the York Road intersect. Clutched in his hand was an ambrotype of three children. There was no other identification on his body. He had been hit by a minie ball in the chest just above the heart, and so had a precious few seconds of life left after the soft lead struck him. It was obvious what his last thoughts on earth were of: his precious children and their welfare without a father. He was buried near where he fell, but the ambrotype—and the story of how much it meant to him—was recovered and embraced by Dr. J. Francis Bourns, a wealthy Philadelphian who was serving as a volunteer surgeon.
Moved by the story of the unknown Union soldier whose last thoughts were of his children left behind, he had the ambrotype copied as cartes de visite and published in hope of identifying the soldier
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Monument to Sgt. Amos Humiston and his children.
In Portville, New York, a woman had heard of the huge battle in south-central Pennsylvania. Ominously, at about the same time, like in thousands of other homes across the country, the letters from her husband, without explanation, simply ceased arriving.
Meantime, Dr. Bourns, with his own money, circulated the image throughout the country in various publications, including one called The American Presbyterian. One, and only one, resident of Portville was a subscriber and recognized the three children in the publication as those of her neighbor, Philinda Humiston. The image was shown to Mrs. Humiston. She recognized her children, and realized the fate of her husband at that moment. Again the gathering of the children to her; again the awful words, “Papa’s never coming home again.”
The soldier was thus identified as Sgt. Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Infantry. Immediately it was thought that the sale of the moving photograph and its story would provide money to educate the Humiston children; it was also believed that enough money could be raised to establish an orphanage for the children of other deceased Union soldiers. Copies of the now-famous photo were sold, a poetry contest was held, and other fundraising efforts finally paid off. Gettysburg was chosen as the natural site for the National Orphan’s Homestead, with Mrs. Humiston as its first matron. The building chosen in Gettysburg had been used as Gen. Oliver Otis Howard’s headquarters during the battle.