Ghosts of Gettysburg III

by Mark Nesbitt

  The Homestead opened in the fall of 1866. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant visited in 1867. Shortly after the opening, the children began a tradition that continues on every Memorial Day to the present: laying flowers on the graves of the dead in the National Cemetery, just up the street. It seemed appropriate since many of the children had the sad duty of placing flowers on the graves of their own fathers, killed in the Battle of Gettysburg.

  General U.S. Grant with others visited the National Homestead at Gettysburg in 1867.

  The orphanage did well until Mrs. Humiston remarried and resigned her position as matron. The arrival of a new matron, Mrs. Rosa Carmichael, signaled a change in the way things were run in the orphanage, and a descent into cruelties that no child deserved.

  The tradition of the orphans strewing flowers on the graves of the dead ceased by order of Mrs. Carmichael. Imagine the orphans, on succeeding Memorial Days, watching the other children of Gettysburg lay flowers on the graves of their own fathers, while they, only a short walk away, were forced not to participate.

  Other punishments were soon to follow. Stories slowly emerged of cruelty to the orphans: they were confined in a damp, dark hole in the cellar named “the dungeon”; they were placed in shackles and suspended by the arm in barrels. One brutal older orphan acted as kapo and kicked and beat the younger ones; a 5-year-old was discovered by a neighbor one bitterly cold Christmas Eve, screaming, locked in an outbuilding; a little girl was made to stand on a desk, balancing precariously until she nearly collapsed. Though others were beaten and kicked, all evidence disappeared when the inspectors came.

  After a bitter battle in the newspapers and the courts, the Homestead for Orphans of the Civil War was closed in 1877. Mrs. Carmichael was sent packing, the children dispersed.

  Some say, however, that they are not altogether gone.

  The orphanage building became a museum to the Civil War soldier. Over the years, visitors to the museum have continued to report hearing the cries of children when in the Soldier’s National Museum. As recently as three years ago, visitors heard the mournful, heartbreaking sounds of children screaming and crying seemingly coming from the back of the building or perhaps from the cellar where Mrs. Carmichael’s dank “dungeon” once held youngsters in its damp embrace. An investigation by the management of the museum proved that no one else was in the building at the time, nor was anyone in the adjacent buildings. It was during the “off-season” and all the other buildings nearby were closed.

  Could it be these tortured children’s souls crying out that were said to be heard at odd hours and random times in the National Cemetery Lodge—just two doors up from the orphanage—for years before this author moved into the Lodge? Could it have been one of these interminably damned children that I indeed heard crying out one dark night in the Lodge?1

  As if their childhood wasn’t stolen away from them soon enough by war’s random, illogical brutality; as if having a dear father and his love wrenched away by far-off, heartless politics incomprehensible to children, wasn’t the last straw. The children’s spirits continue, apparently, to suffer through the ages and the generations, poignant reminders of the results of that most horrible offspring ever of man: war.2

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  Chapter 7: Brotherhood Forever

  When the footpads quail at the night-bird’s wail,

  and black dogs bay at the moon,

  Then is the specters’ holiday—then is the ghosts’ high noon!

  —Sir Wm. Schwenck Gilbert, Ruddigore, Act II

  College fraternities have well-known reputations, some good, and some bad. Gettysburg College’s fraternities are no different, with the attributes of brotherhood, friendship, and service, as well as the notoriety of being the places to go for revelry on a Friday or Saturday night.

  Sigma Nu House

  The Sigma Nu House on West Broadway is known for eerie footsteps, levitations, and the sounds of doors opening and closing when no one has entered or left.1 Along with it are a number of other houses, once privately owned that now shelter fraternity men—and apparently some other beings as well….

  The Theta Chi House stands on Carlisle Street. The house was built by Col. Charles H. Buehler.2 Buehler, in his youth, attended Pennsylvania (now Gettysburg) College for two years and then became involved in publishing the local newspaper. When the Civil War broke out he enlisted and spent two years serving. Returning to Gettysburg after his service, he built the house in 1869, one of the first constructed north of the railroad.

  Evidence of the ethereal nature of supernatural tales is the fact that the events that were said to have brought on the unexplainable occurrences are often different in their beginnings. Obviously, the telling of tales through the generations can account for the differences. Two legends have emerged from the lore of the Theta Chi House, both of which revolve around the cellar, either of which could be the genesis for the strange happenings recorded over the years.

  The first of the legends of the Theta Chi House records that many years ago, one of the brothers, in spite of health ordinances in Gettysburg proscribing certain quirky disposals of the dead, requested, and was granted his request, to be buried in the basement of the old house. Someone—perhaps some new brother who grew squeamish at the thought of a body sleeping eternally below where he slept—apparently reported this grisly last request and, in spite of the deceased’s desire to spend eternity with “the brotherhood,” the body was removed to a more appropriate cemetery and there laid to rest.

  Shortly afterward, odd—and even bizarre—events began to take place in the house. Lights in a certain room would suddenly extinguish. A trip to the switch and a flick would turn them back on again. A query of other brothers would reveal that no other lights had flickered during that time indicating a power failure or blown fuse. It was as if someone simply wanted the lights off in just that room.

  Creaking noises, sometimes like footsteps, sometimes like floorboards buckling, would emanate from halls and rooms when no one was there to make the noises. Rapping noises (which some researchers wish to attribute to interior pipes or tree limbs outside) were heard inside the house. Doors left open would slowly swing shut, even on windless days. These same doors, on other occasions, would slowly swing open, as if allowing someone out of the rooms. Student researchers have given excellent, documented explanations for most of the happenings, but some of the occupants are convinced that they are the manifestations of a fraternity member long dead who was first granted his deathbed wish—then had it taken away—to spend eternity with his brothers.

  The second legend is that of a man named Thompson. Current research fails to indicate whether Thompson was an owner or just a tenant in the house. Either way, brothers in the 1980s called a room in the basement, “Thompson’s Room,” identified thus because it was in this room that the mysterious Thompson allegedly killed his wife and buried her. Thompson fled the area, but, like some character out of an Edgar Allen Poe story, he was driven to imprudent actions by his guilty conscience. He returned to Gettysburg, confessed his guilt, and, apparently deciding that official justice was not quick enough to suit his own nagging conscience, hanged himself.

  From this second legend comes the documented story of how one of the brothers who graduated in 1980 had walked into the house and heard muffled voices coming from the room which is situated right above “Thompson’s Room.” Walking closer to the room he realized that the door was closed. He also realized that he did not recognize the voices as belonging to any of the brothers. He knocked on the door and the voices stopped. He opened the door, and to his astonishment, the room was empty.

  Another brother was getting ready for bed and turned off his light. He crawled into bed and began to doze off when the light came back on. The switch was of the dimmer variety; the type one pushes to turn on and off. He got out of bed, pushed the switch to turn the lights off and got back into bed. Again the lights came back on. Finally, after turning the lights off a third time, they remai
ned extinguished, though the student’s imagination certainly burned more brightly after the incident.

  Late in 1981 some of the brothers were partying in what they call the “Mystic Rites Room” on the third floor. Someone had brought up the topic of ghosts, and the discussion proceeded in that direction for some time. Finally, one of the brothers excused himself to go to bed.

  When he crawled into bed, his reading light was hanging on the wall behind his bunk, just beyond the side of his bed. The light had fallen from the nail before and always dropped straight down and landed on the floor. The next morning he awoke, rolled over, and found the lamp had come off the nail again. But this time it was lying on the bed right next to him, placed there by some unseen hand as if to remind him that the living were not the only ones occupying the house.

  When he told the brothers about the incident one of them scoffed and said “Thompson must have done it!” As if to remove all doubt, a light that had been clamped to an object suddenly clicked off, fell to the floor and broke. The six or seven others in the room, including the house chef, were “freaked out,” as the interview goes. When their courage had returned, they examined the light. Some remembered that the lamp had never come undamped before, and, in order to be removed, had to be physically undamped and pulled off the object.

  Other feats of levitation were performed in the presence of the brothers. A full beer resting upon a silent stereo speaker, “floated out before falling” to the floor. Falling off of a roaring speaker can be explained, but witnesses confirmed that it levitated and moved forward for a moment before crashing to the floor. The same thing happened, in another room, to a large brandy snifter sitting upon a bookcase. Indeed, music was playing in the room, but the recording had stopped and there was some length of silence, when the several people watched as the glass snifter “fell” the two or more feet from the book case to the wooden desk so gently that it didn’t even break, barely rolled, and stopped on its side, almost as if someone had carefully lowered it to the desk.

  The fraternal bonds of brotherhood run deep and lasting, and a young man’s allegiance to his “house” can extend well into his adulthood…and sometimes beyond.

  Phi Gamma Delta—”Fiji”—is now a pleasant place to live and study…for most of the time. It is located on the southern end of the campus, not too far from the football stadium; next to haunted Brua Hall3 and just a short walk from the library. It has been the scene of a number of raucous parties over the years and for a long time was known for the annual “Fiji Island” party. The party was held in the winter and the brothers would serve drinks with little paper umbrellas and hire a local contractor to bring in enough sand to create a “beach” near the house. No matter how miserable the weather, the “uniform” for the party was shorts, shirtsleeves, and—for the very brave—swimsuits and sandals.

  But one late autumn night, the place became not a house of fun and frivolity, but instead a house of fiery horror.

  The newspaper clippings tell some, but not all of what may have happened. The Gettysburg Times screamed the headline, “College Senior Dies In Frat House Fire: Top Floor Of Phi Gam House On Campus Burns Before Dawn; 18 Escape.” But there were 19 in the house.

  The one victim, according to the coroner, died of “burns all over the body.” The firemen who responded to the alarm said that the fire had been smoldering for over an hour before the smoke roused some of the other brothers. After they removed the young man they reported that it was possible that the student had been sitting in an overstuffed chair in which the fire may have started. He apparently awakened and started for a window that opened onto a fire escape behind the building. He was agonizingly close to escaping when he collapsed. His body was found only a foot and a half from the window.

  The brother who discovered the fire first smelled smoke and saw a “wall of flames” in front of the victim’s room. They attempted to put out the fire with water and fire extinguishers, but were driven back by superheated air generated by the fire. The state police investigator thought the fire was started by careless smoking, but an “official source” later said that the victim had earlier set off some fire crackers in the house at about 4:30 that morning. Sparks caused by the explosions were apparently extinguished by the victim using a pillow. One can imagine the student bringing the deadly pillow back into his room and tossing it onto the chair then sitting on it and falling asleep, never knowing he carried back into his room his own fate. By 5:30 or so the sparks were smoldering, and by 6:00 a.m. the “wall of flame” was engulfing the room and the student.

  The house was eventually cleaned up and repopulated. Though there was death and horror in the third floor room, it too was reoccupied, and has continued to be since the fire. And yet, something is not quite right there.

  There are reports that during one late-night study session that continued into the early morning hours, several brothers were present when, suddenly, the lights went out. There, standing in the far corner of the study room was a whispy form of a human….

  No other explanation or description of the figure accompanies the notes.

  And there is the recurring and frightening “nightmare” that students continue to have, which awakens them with that certain cold chill, that feeling of inescapability, as if you were trapped by whatever it is that has entered your most private slumber.

  Other students are awakened from their sleep by the shout of “Fire!”—a nightmare, some say; no, say others: the cry is so loud and distinct that it must be real. These certain students are always the ones who have been assigned to the room in which that horrible, frightening cry once echoed in deadly earnest.

  Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, Gettysburg College

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  Chapter 8: Sleep Eternal?

  Dead, but sceptered sovereigns who still rule us from the dust.

  — Monument to Confederate dead

  Johnson’s Island Prison, Sandusky, Ohio

  We revisit the Civil War-era house on Baltimore Street, with the modern section added to it, where a young soldier seems trapped, fated to remain stuck in the older section of the house while young men of his age—but not his time—enjoy the youthful life that he was so cruelly denied. As they party, he can only watch and mourn a childhood that was snatched away from him far too soon by war.1

  He is often seen observing the revelers from the old section of the house as the party goes on. And they sometimes see him. Those who have seen him, wave and encourage him to join them, thinking he is merely a younger brother of one of the residents. But it is never to be. He is no more a younger brother than he is alive….

  It was a Sunday night. No party was raging in the house. Instead, there was sleep. The doors were locked. It was in the middle of the night, moving on to morning.

  But one student was still awake, engaged in what is known to college students as “pulling an all-nighter”—staying up all night studying for an exam the next day. He was in the basement, which had been fixed up as a study area for the students. Every light was extinguished, except for the small lamp by which he was studying.

  All was quiet except for that marvelous cacophony of learning going on in the student’s head—though, he admitted, by this time in the morning, the roar of discovery had subsided a bit. While deep in thought, his attention was directed to a small noise above his head. Tilting an ear toward the ceiling, he heard what he thought was the upstairs door to the outside opening. He was immediately confused, because he knew everyone had gone to bed a few hours before, and he had heard no one get up and go out. As he listened to the sound, he realized that there indeed were footsteps, moving slowly, lightly from the kitchen to the front door. What impressed him the most about them is that the steps were not of anyone of adult size—no one of his housemates’ sizes—but instead were of a small person, or perhaps a youngster.

  For a good eight to ten minutes he listened as the steps slowly made their way from the kitchen out to the front room and back. As
he stood, he heard the steps pass across the floor, just inches above his head. He could practically feel them brush his head, and the hair on the back of his neck stood.

  Slowly, he made his way to the stairs, hoping that the intruder would not be dangerous. Gaining courage, he was convinced by the lightness of the footfalls that the stranger was much smaller than he. By coincidence, as the student walked through the cellar, the footsteps above his head paralleled his own as they both approached the door that stood between their very different worlds.

  As he began to ascend the stairs, the student’s gaze was caught by something strange: there, from beneath the door to the first floor came a luminescence, a glowing that began to stretch across the top step and light up his surroundings. He froze on the stairs as the light grew brighter and brighter until it began to pierce the cracks of the old door and reach out to caress his chest and face. The oddest thing about it, he recalled, was that the light only went halfway up the door, as if the source, whatever it might be, was small in stature.

  Curiosity slowly overcame reason. The student fought a pounding heart and reached reluctantly to the doorknob to see what—or who—it was that gave off such a radiance. As he touched the doorknob, the light vanished. He found himself at the top of the stairs in complete darkness.

  He opened the door and peered into the upstairs, but no one was there. He walked into the room and looked around for his housemates, but they were all still upstairs sound asleep.