Ghost Soldiers of Gettysburg

by Patrick Burke

  Jon added to the list of phenomena we experienced that night. “When we first arrived for the ghost tour, I was standing to the side looking at something on Seminary Ridge, and it looked like a cat,” he described. “It was oblong and black, maybe the size of a football. And it kind of bounded down the hill a little bit. There was this bushy shrub tree, and it went behind that and disappeared. I poked Jack and we walked down there to make sure it wasn’t a cat or something in the tree. We actually walked down past the tree, and there was nothing in the tree. There was nowhere for it to jump out, and I watched the tree the entire time.”

  (top) A ghostly mist forms in McPherson’s Woods, where heavy fighting took place on the first day of the battle. (bottom) Second still from video shows mist forming and moving like someone running with what looks like a gun. Photos by Michael Hartness.

  Robin, who had been with us on a few Gettysburg investigations in the past and was a very reliable witness, said that she was standing by the church steeple toward the end of the tour, and she had this feeling in her peripheral vision as if something was going to happen to her right. “So I turned around, took a few steps away from the tour guide, and thought I saw what appeared to be soldiers,” she said. “It was just a couple of them at first moving between the trees. This is when Debbie (a sensitive) came over, probably out of concern. There was such a strong odor of gunpowder that my eyes started tearing. And it was so bitterly cold that my camera froze. The batteries did not fail; the camera froze. The zoom lens wouldn’t move, and nothing would work. Debbie came over, which was comforting because when you’re in the midst of something like that away from the group, you want somebody around.”

  Debbie jumped in with her perspective. “I walked over to her because she was standing perfectly still, so I thought something was going on,” she said. “As soon as I started walking toward her, the closer I got to her, the colder it got. By the time I got in front of her, I could smell the gunpowder, and we’re both sniffing the air and asking, ‘Well, what do you smell?’ She’s telling me she’s smelling gunpowder, and I’m smelling the same thing, so I knew we weren’t both hallucinating this strange odor, and it was freezing cold.”

  “It was freezing!” added Robin.

  “I mean it was cold to begin with, but this was a bone-chilling cold,” continued Debbie. “This went right through your skin like a deep, frigid cold. And then we lost you guys for a bit and had to find you again, and as the tour guide was telling the story about the soldier who was accidentally buried alive, we were looking again at that same area because the other thing we had seen was two columns of white, kind of misty, floating material. And we both saw it.”

  “Just coming up from the earth,” said Robin. “A mist.”

  “But it didn’t belong there; it wasn’t supposed to be there and it wasn’t right … there was no mist anyplace else,” said Debbie. “So then we were walking toward it, and the closer we got to that little grove of trees, the colder it was getting. We stopped and just watched. And you could see deeper shadows, but they were definitely people-shaped shadows moving between the trees, and they were definitely moving.

  “Robin, how many were there?” I asked.

  “There was a group of three, and there was another pair of two, and there was another group of at least four,” she said. “We were really careful to point out where and in what direction they were moving. Whether it was at the streetlight, to the right of the streetlight, or ahead of the tree. We were really careful to identify movement to each other to make sure we weren’t seeing car taillights or something like that.”

  “A lot of mysterious shadows and lights,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “When we left, we got turned around on Seminary Ridge and wound up on Confederate Avenue, so we got to ride along where Pickett’s division formed before Pickett’s Charge and all the way down to the end of the Confederate line,” said Jon. “I mean, it’s miles and miles of tree line and monuments and cannons and everything else, and as we drove down, I saw a large rectangular light, a bright light out in the middle of the battlefield. It was distinctly purple and as large as one of the monuments. It was as if somebody put a purple film in front of a light to make the light change color. It was bright and purple, and it was basically lit up in the middle of the battlefield.”

  I pointed out to everyone that I was in the car with Jon and Scott, and both of their reactions were interesting because they reacted at exactly the same time to whatever they saw.

  “Yeah, I saw it too,” said Scott. “It was the weirdest thing. We tried to come up with a rational explanation of what it could have been, but we couldn’t. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. And why purple? It’s been a very strange night.”

  After the roundtable discussion, Scott and Jon stayed up a while longer to tell me about their interpretation of the streaking light they also saw on Seminary Ridge. I didn’t know they had also seen a similar phenomenon, so I was interested to hear what they had to say.

  “We were standing out there just enjoying the tour,” Scott began. “The tour guide had set down her lantern, and we were all gathered around in a semicircle. Suddenly, almost thirty feet above us, I saw a very intense, extremely bright white streak of light. It wasn’t a ball of light casting a contrail; it wasn’t any fixed thing. It was just like a stretch of light that was about three to four feet long. It started out about three or four inches wide and as it went along, it stretched and elongated a little bit, and then it just dissipated. It kind of looked like a glowing surfboard, to be honest with you. So basically, it started about twenty-five feet above us, and it went and kind of streaked away.”

  “I think I saw the other end of what Scott saw,” Jon continued. “When I first got to that spot, instead of listening to the tour I was watching the top of the Seminary to try and see if I could see anything up in the tower. I saw shadows up there move like somebody hit it with a flashlight, and I looked around to tell somebody but I didn’t see anybody else looking that way, so I was going to wait until the end of the tour, but that’s when I heard the others talking about seeing a light coming from one way and then dissipate going the other way. But that’s what I saw. The tour guide also told us she saw the same thing happen about two or three times before we got there. Her husband saw it once and she saw it twice—a light from that general area streaking across the sky, but it never followed the same pattern twice. And there were no lighthouses or searchlights around there, so it couldn’t have been that.”

  “And what you saw was moving in the same trajectory as what I saw,” added Scott. “But what I saw faded out, so it’s almost like Jon was looking in a different direction, and whatever it was kind of re-intensified later on down the line but at the same trajectory.”

  These eyewitness accounts illustrate just how hard it is to accurately describe and define paranormal incidents. Each person who saw the streaking light on Seminary Ridge most likely saw the same thing but had a different interpretation of what it looked like. In this case, one person’s bug was another person’s ghostly surfboard.

  Different interpretations aside, notice how in a group setting as one person starts to open up about experiencing something, other people start to feel more comfortable about it and chime in with their own experiences. It started with a flash of light in the sky that Shannon thought might be a bug, but thankfully she wasn’t afraid to mention it. From that we obtained compelling and corroborative testimony involving other strange lights, moving shadows, glowing figures, the overwhelming smell of gunpowder, shadowy soldier figures, and a huge flash of purple light seen right where Pickett’s men would have congregated to prepare for their famous charge. This is why having roundtable discussions (in a relaxed atmosphere) after a paranormal event is an effective way to draw out and document eyewitness testimony.

  That night on Seminary Ridge was one of the most interesting nights I’ve ever spent in Gett
ysburg, but what exactly did we see? Surprisingly, seeing flashes and streaks of light on the battlefield is more common than one might think. Some theorize these may represent the imprinted energies of both gun and cannon fire, which is certainly a plausible explanation considering the concentrated amount that was expelled in a three-day period. As for smelling the gunpowder, this too could easily represent a residual haunting, as the entire battlefield and surrounding countryside must have been permeated with the smell of gunpowder (and other, much more ghastly things) for days. Regarding the shadows and the glowing figures, we’ll probably never know; we obtained no photographic evidence to corroborate the visual sightings.

  In the end, these experiences left us with more questions than answers, but by documenting them, we may someday be able to develop a viable blueprint as to the nature of paranormal activity. And perhaps more importantly, engaging in the pursuit of these answers allows us to witness profound events and learn a great deal about—if nothing else—the human experience.

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  Chapter Six

  The Mississippi

  Boys Join In

  — By Patrick Burke —

  It was late in September 2004 when my team was asked to take a group of investigators to Gettysburg. They wanted to see some hot spots where we had experienced paranormal phenomena on previous investigations. I took a small group to the Copse of Trees on Cemetery Ridge, just behind the stone wall where Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead crossed over during Trimble/Pickett’s Charge. After I was done with this guided walkthrough, I decided to visit the site of the William Bliss Farmhouse and Barn, which stood in the no-man’s land between the Confederate forces on Seminary Ridge and the Union army on Cemetery Ridge. On the evening after the first day’s battle, Union sharpshooters moved into the Bliss Farm House and Barn. The next morning, General Posey’s Mississippi troops were sent to drive the Yankees out. This resulted in the Bliss Farm being the subject of fierce fighting on both the second and third days of the battle and was the perfect place for sharpshooters on both sides to harass their enemy. It was also the site of a great controversy.

  Union Commanding General George Meade’s headquarters was on Cemetery Ridge, where Confederate forces focused the brunt of their attack on the third day of the battle. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  I wanted to get a head start, so I told the group I would meet them at the Bliss Farm. At approximately nine p.m., I began my short drive to Seminary Ridge. The night was cool and I could see my breath in the chilly air. A scattering of clouds danced with the moon. I pulled over to the side of the road near where Confederate Gen. Carnot Posey’s Mississippi Brigade started their attack on July 2, 1863. I turned off the car lights and stepped into the pitch black of night. I stood there for several minutes acclimating to the night sounds and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I felt as if I was being watched, which is something I’ve experienced many times before during battlefield investigations. I quietly said “hello” and poured some water for any thirsty souls who might be present.

  I crossed the road toward the open fields of the Bliss Farm and wondered what it must have been like for Posey and his men during the battle. Posey’s brigade was composed of four Mississippi regiments of infantry, and formed part of Gen. Richard Anderson’s division of Gen. A. P. Hill’s Third Corps. The brigade assisted in the attack against the Union positions along Cemetery Ridge and toward the heights of Little Round Top and the Devil’s Den on July 2.

  On that day, a Union skirmish line held the Bliss Farmhouse and Barn, but Posey’s brigade attacked and took hold of the buildings for a short time until Union reinforcements forced them to retreat. The Mississippians re-formed and drove the Union troopers out of the farmhouse and barn, but instead of advancing and supporting Gen. Ambrose Wright’s Georgia Brigade on their right, they stayed and held the buildings. The controversy as to whether Posey had orders to hold his position or advance to Cemetery Ridge and help Wright remains unsettled today.

  In The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Wright reported:

  We were now within less than 100 yards of the crest of the heights, which were lined with artillery, supported by a strong line of infantry, under protection from a stone fence. My men, by a well-directed fire, soon drove the cannoneers from their guns, and, leaping over the fence, charged up the top of the crest, and drove the enemy’s infantry into a rocky gorge on the eastern slope of the heights, and some 80 or 100 yards in rear of the enemy’s batteries. We were now complete masters of the field, having gained the key, as it were, of the enemy’s whole line.

  Wright could have maintained the heights on Cemetery Ridge, changing the complexity of the battle dramatically, but through some strange twist of fate he wasn’t supported in his advance. He continued in his report:

  Unfortunately, just as we had carried the enemy’s last and strongest position, it was discovered that the brigade on our right had not only not advanced across the turnpike, but had actually given way and was rapidly falling back to the rear, while on our left we were entirely unprotected, the brigade ordered to our support having failed to advance … I have not the slightest doubt but that I should have been able to have maintained my position on the heights, and secured the captured artillery, if there had been a protecting force on my left, or if the brigade on my right had not been forced to retire.

  Perception is relative. From Wright’s point of view, he was let down by Posey and other Confederate forces, but what about Posey’s perception of the facts? If he did, in fact, receive orders to hold the Bliss Farm, he would have obeyed those orders and felt an immense amount of pride in doing so. Although Posey did send several regiments forward at different times, he never advanced in force, which was the original concept and plan that Lee put forth. Two of Posey’s regiments, the Nineteenth and Forty-Eighth Mississippi, did advance forward with Wright’s brigade all the way to Brian’s Barn near Ziegler’s Grove, but they were told by an officer to fall back, not once, but three times.

  Unfortunately, conflicting recollections and the passage of time have clouded what happened on that day. Some historians, and the people who read specific accounts like Wright’s above, will always believe that Posey’s brigade somehow failed in their duty, which isn’t fair to the brave Mississippians who fought so hard to secure this strategic patch of land.

  After I offered up some water to the thirsty troops, I stepped over the rock wall and into the open field toward the Bliss Farm. Suddenly, the feeling of extreme hunger struck me. “Odd,” I thought to myself. “I just ate a satisfying meal at the Lincoln Diner.” Could I be having an interactive experience with one of Posey’s men? I knew that the troops had not had a hot meal that day.

  I entered the field just as the moon broke through some clouds and bathed the field in front of me in moonlight. “Well boys,” I said aloud in a Southern drawl, “I’ll be stepping off now to the farm ahead; you can join me if you’ve a mind to.” As soon as I started walking, a rush of energy hit me violently—apprehension, anticipation, fear, and determination all mingled together in a tidal wave of emotion.

  This makes a person wonder how they might react in a battlefield situation. I began to pick up my pace, feeling the need to gain the cover of the farmhouse as quickly as possible. Off to my right, I heard several men walking; seconds later, the same sounds came from my left. Was this a residual haunting or a genuine, live interaction? Ghosts react to our energy, and there are many times when we walk into a room or area and set off a genuine haunting experience. It was almost 800 yards to the remains of the Bliss farmhouse and another 200 yards to where the barn used to be. The ghost soldiers continued to walk with me until I saw the LED flashlight of one of my team members pointed in my direction. Before I headed back toward the group, I stopped and said thank you to the Mississippi boys for their company, and bid them farewell.

  I can o
nly wonder if some of the fallen soldiers from Posey’s brigade still walk the fields in and around the Bliss Farm area, waiting to be vindicated from any controversies related to their actions on July 2, 1863, when the chaos and confusion of battle often prevailed over objective thinking.

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  Spangler’s Spring

  Chapter Seven

  Gut Shot Soldier

  — By Patrick Burke —

  Sometimes you capture the most incredible paranormal evidence when you least expect it. As a case in point, a few years ago I was trying out my new infrared camcorder and wanted to see how it would record when shooting at dusk in the near-infrared format. I decided to film at Spangler’s Spring, partly because I’d never filmed there before and partly because of the time of day, around seven thirty p.m. The sun was setting behind the trees near the spring, which would help eliminate any direct sunlight that might cause the image to become completely overexposed as a result of too much light pouring into the lens aperture.