Halloween ghost stories

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Forum Host
Joined
Aug 25, 2012
Image1.jpg


Halloween is approaching so we all need to come up with some Civil War ghost stories.

I will start with a story, but it may not be a real ghost story. However, did happen to me.

Years ago my wife and I visited a cemetery in a village where many of my relatives are buried. As I walked about I saw a Civil War headstone which was almost completely imbedded in a tree. Some badger or other animal had decided to make their home in the roots of the tree. There were some human bones from the long dead Civil War soldier laying on the ground which the badger had dug out.

I told my wife I should rebury the exposed bones. However, I did not have anything to dig with so I kicked a small hole, shoved the bones in, and kick dirt over the bones. My wife was appalled and thought I should drive the one mile to my uncle's house and get a shovel and properly rebury the bones of the Civil War soldier. She also thought I should have been more respectful.

I did not want to drive to my uncle's house so I told her the dead soldier did not care if I shoved his bones in with my foot or gently laid then in the hole I dug. Because she likes to get the last word she said she thought the dead soldier should haunt me.

Not being they type to take ghost haunting to heart I laughed it off. Several times in the next couple weeks I woke up an night and in the dark I felt an eerie feeling like something was in the room. Could it be that my wife got her wish and the Civil War soldier was paying me back? Well if so, he quit visiting me and life returned to normal. Or did it? The next time I went to the cemetery I walked past where I believed the tree with the embedded Civil War maker should have been and I could not find the Civil War marker. I have been to the cemetery many times since and not found the embedded Civil War headstone. So I call this the Case of the Missing Headstone.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A good story to start with hopefully others will add theirs. I was offered the remains of some Confederate soldiers in the 1980's, but I was not interested. I should have bought one so he could be reburied with military honors. I just did not think it was right to sell them in the first place. They should have been turned over to the NPS to rebury.
 
A good story to start with hopefully others will add theirs. I was offered the remains of some Confederate soldiers in the 1980's, but I was not interested. I should have bought one so he could be reburied with military honors. I just did not think it was right to sell them in the first place. They should have been turned over to the NPS to rebury.
Someone was selling Civil War bones? Creepy in so many ways. Did they have proof they were from the Civil War?
 
Halloween is approaching so we all need to come up with some Civil War ghost stories.

I will start with a story, but it may not be a real ghost story. However, did happen to me.

Years ago my wife and I visited a cemetery in a village where many of my relatives are buried. As I walked about I saw a Civil War headstone which was almost completely imbedded in a tree. Some badger or other animal had decided to make their home in the roots of the tree. There were some human bones from the long dead Civil War soldier laying on the ground which the badger had dug out.

I told my wife I should rebury the exposed bones. However, I did not have anything to dig with so I kicked a small hole, shoved the bones in, and kick dirt over the bones. My wife was appalled and thought I should drive the one mile to my uncle's house and get a shovel and properly rebury the bones of the Civil War soldier. She also thought I should have been more respectful.

I did not want to drive to my uncle's house so I told her the dead soldier did not care if I shoved his bones in with my foot or gently laid then in the hole I dug. Because she likes to get the last word she said she thought the dead soldier should haunt me.

Not being they type to take ghost haunting to heart I laughed it off. Several times in the next couple weeks I woke up an night and in the dark I felt an eerie feeling like something was in the room. Could it be that my wife got her wish and the Civil War soldier was paying me back? Well if so, he quit visiting me and life returned to normal. Or did it? The next time I went to the cemetery I walked past where I believed the tree with the embedded Civil War maker should have been and I could not find the Civil War marker. I have been to the cemetery many times since and not found the embedded Civil War headstone. So I call this the Case of the Missing Headstone.
But is the tree still there? Maybe the tree just finished engulfing the stone. (By the way, I know of a similar Civil War stone in one of the local cemeteries--almost completely surrounded by a living tree. No soldier bones, though.)
 
This isn't a ghost story, but it's a bit creepy.

I grew up on a farm that was being developed into a residential neighborhood. At the end of the new street were several acres of thickly wooded river bluffs and deep hollows. I had a campsite overlooking the Missouri River back there. Because my extended family collectively owned the woods, I could and did build a permanent campsite there and I spent lots of summer days there for years. When I was in college, one of my uncles casually mentioned to me that there were "nine Civil War soldier graves" along a particular fence row. I knew an earthen Civil War fort had once been located in that area and I knew a substantial battle was fought at the fort, but no one knew the precise location of any of this. The story my uncle told me seemed plausible, and he was one of the family who bought the land after WWII, so it seemed logical that he might have received an oral history from the previous land owner. I walked along that fence row to my hangout on every excursion, but I never saw any mounds or any bones washing out, so I eventually forgot about it.

The land got sold, I moved elsewhere in the same town, and decades passed.

I've told this next part in other threads here. A couple of years ago, a family from Illinois stopped by the local visitor's center and asked about the location of the fort. They produced a diary written by their Civil War ancestor who was stationed at the fort, and it included a map of the fort and surrounding key features which identified the location. The Visitor's Center people scanned the map and I obtained a copy. I recognized some of the roads, gates, hollows, and two houses as features of the land where I grew up. I was able to layer all of this over a Google satellite photo and make an exact determination of the size and location of the soldier fort! What a find!

But here's the creepy part: The soldier drew the hollows and the line along which my campsite trail ran. A notation on the soldier's map, right there in the fence row said: "Soldier Graves."
 
This isn't a ghost story, but it's a bit creepy.

I grew up on a farm that was being developed into a residential neighborhood. At the end of the new street were several acres of thickly wooded river bluffs and deep hollows. I had a campsite overlooking the Missouri River back there. Because my extended family collectively owned the woods, I could and did build a permanent campsite there and I spent lots of summer days there for years. When I was in college, one of my uncles casually mentioned to me that there were "nine Civil War soldier graves" along a particular fence row. I knew an earthen Civil War fort had once been located in that area and I knew a substantial battle was fought at the fort, but no one knew the precise location of any of this. The story my uncle told me seemed plausible, and he was one of the family who bought the land after WWII, so it seemed logical that he might have received an oral history from the previous land owner. I walked along that fence row to my hangout on every excursion, but I never saw any mounds or any bones washing out, so I eventually forgot about it.

The land got sold, I moved elsewhere in the same town, and decades passed.

I've told this next part in other threads here. A couple of years ago, a family from Illinois stopped by the local visitor's center and asked about the location of the fort. They produced a diary written by their Civil War ancestor who was stationed at the fort, and it included a map of the fort and surrounding key features which identified the location. The Visitor's Center people scanned the map and I obtained a copy. I recognized some of the roads, gates, hollows, and two houses as features of the land where I grew up. I was able to layer all of this over a Google satellite photo and make an exact determination of the size and location of the soldier fort! What a find!

But here's the creepy part: The soldier drew the hollows and the line along which my campsite trail ran. A notation on the soldier's map, right there in the fence row said: "Soldier Graves."
That is a very interesting story!
 
Do you know if that spot has been preserved as a burial ground? I hope so.
The spot is just along a little path in the woods with a fence row of osage orange trees on one side and a deep hollow on the other. I am sure the current owner is clueless. I have no idea whether the bodies are still there, or whether they might have been removed to the military cemetery in Jefferson City after the war. I do know that a lady who owned part of the property during the war wrote to General Halleck asking that the burials be stopped, and also asking that construction of the fort quit disturbing her own family burial ground. I also know her family burial ground and most of the fort location, and an Indian burial mound were bulldozed away for construction of a hospital in the early 20th century. The fence row containing the "soldier graves" is still undisturbed. I am also sure that, where ever these soldiers are now buried, they died of camp diseases and not combat.
 
Coming back to add a thought: I have evidence that the lady who farmed part of the property wrote the letter to Halleck as I described in my post #10. I think it is likely that the bodies were moved either during the war or after, and that those poor boys are buried in a military cemetery. Gee....their mothers and fathers might never have had closure! Tragic!

But, anyway, I am not at all convinced that those boys are still buried along the fence row. They might be. If so, I hope their remains were buried deep. It is undisturbed land, and if they are still there, God knows all about it. Let's not worry ourselves. God has it under control. I think most of you see what I mean. I realize a few readers won't agree with this post. That's okay, too.
 
Coming back to add a thought: I have evidence that the lady who farmed part of the property wrote the letter to Halleck as I described in my post #10. I think it is likely that the bodies were moved either during the war or after, and that those poor boys are buried in a military cemetery. Gee....their mothers and fathers might never have had closure! Tragic!

But, anyway, I am not at all convinced that those boys are still buried along the fence row. They might be. If so, I hope their remains were buried deep. It is undisturbed land, and if they are still there, God knows all about it. Let's not worry ourselves. God has it under control. I think most of you see what I mean. I realize a few readers won't agree with this post. That's okay, too.


No, you're not alone. Spoke to someone who, years ago found a soldier's grave at Gettysburg- washed out soil from a big storm. He said he ensured that man stayed where he'd been all these years ( did not ask how ). A vet, he considered it more respectful not to disturb the grave of another combat vet, instead of dug up and moved from somewhere he'd been at rest for a century and a half. I can see that. That soldier failed to come home, the family mourning him is long gone, it's incredibly unlikely he could be identified. I forget how many graves are thought to be undiscovered at Gettysburg, maybe it is better to allow those in them, peace.
 
But, anyway, I am not at all convinced that those boys are still buried along the fence row. They might be. If so, I hope their remains were buried deep. It is undisturbed land, and if they are still there, God knows all about it. Let's not worry ourselves. God has it under control. I think most of you see what I mean. I realize a few readers won't agree with this post. That's okay, too.
What an absolutely precious thought, @Patrick H . I know it came from your heart, and I really appreciate you sharing it.
 
I went to a college not far from a Civil War battlefield in Virginia. One of my friends was making a short film for her film class and recruited me and another friend to be actors in it. The overarching theme was mourning and I if my memory serves me, it was a series of vignettes--black and white--in which the characters grieved loved ones in different ways, conveying a plethora of human emotions through various movements, expressions, and gestures. I don't recall there being any dialogue or script.

We shot it in a local cemetery. I admit it was awkward at first; I'm no thespian and it took some effort to pretend to be distraught at the grave of a long-dead stranger. All that aside, the experiment seemed to be going fairly smoothly until we encountered, at the back of the cemetery, a massive obelisk with a simple engraving on it that read "Our Confederate Dead: 1861-1865" or something similarly vague. Here the other actor (let's call her "Mary") felt an extemporaneous spark of creative inspiration and began to, erm, gyrate upon this large, phallic chunk of granite. The moment was too perfect to resist; my filmmaker friend turned her camera on and pointed in Mary's direction. No dice--the dead battery warning flashed and the camera promptly shut off. My friend was baffled. The camera had been fully charged overnight and we'd only previous filmed some minutes worth of footage. A deadline was looming and coming back the next day was not an option. She turned the camera on again as I watched over her shoulder. Sure enough, the battery indicator showed it was mostly full. Big sigh of relief! She told Mary to go back to humping the obelisk and again pointed the camera at it to begin filming. Before she could even hit "record"--bam! Low battery warning, camera turned off. She tried it again, but this time pointed the camera up in the opposite direction from the memorial. No problems. But once again, the moment she turned that camera on the memorial it presented the low battery warning and powered off. I lost count of how many times we tried to get it to work and failed. Eventually, we gave up and went off to film in other parts of the cemetery. Now, you've probably already guessed it at this point--we filmed for hours without a hitch as soon as we got away from that one old, towering piece of stone.

It wasn't until years afterwards that I was reading up on the cemetery and I learned that the memorial my friend had been so intimate with marked the location of a mass grave containing the bodies of about 250 Confederate soldiers.
 
It wasn't until years afterwards that I was reading up on the cemetery and I learned that the memorial my friend had been so intimate with marked the location of a mass grave containing the bodies of about 250 Confederate soldiers.
Interesting story which I'm glad you shared, if for no other reason that it's indicative of the need to show respect for the dead. Such a strong physical phenomena to have experienced.
 
Interesting story which I'm glad you shared, if for no other reason that it's indicative of the need to show respect for the dead. Such a strong physical phenomena to have experienced.
Thanks! I wholeheartedly agree that it's important to show respect for the dead--whether they're watching us or not!

If this event was indeed "supernatural" in nature, driven by some unseen consciousness (or consciousnesses), I'm not sure how to interpret it. Maybe a parapsychologist could help me out here... In all seriousness, was someone/something angry and therefore preventing the act from being filmed? Was a ghost rising to protect his comrades' honor? Or is there another explanation?

I know some ghost hunters believe that ghosts "draw" power from electronic devices somehow in order to manifest themselves. If this is the case, could it be that some entity or entities were drawing energy because they enjoyed what was occurring and were trying to get closer? Does a young man cease to be such when his body (and hormones) are no more? Or is desire an indelible part of one's spiritual personality that lingers beyond the grave?
 
Thanks! I wholeheartedly agree that it's important to show respect for the dead--whether they're watching us or not!

If this event was indeed "supernatural" in nature, driven by some unseen consciousness (or consciousnesses), I'm not sure how to interpret it. Maybe a parapsychologist could help me out here... In all seriousness, was someone/something angry and therefore preventing the act from being filmed? Was a ghost rising to protect his comrades' honor? Or is there another explanation?

I know some ghost hunters believe that ghosts "draw" power from electronic devices somehow in order to manifest themselves. If this is the case, could it be that some entity or entities were drawing energy because they enjoyed what was occurring and were trying to get closer? Does a young man cease to be such when his body (and hormones) are no more? Or is desire an indelible part of one's spiritual personality that lingers beyond the grave?
I am going to go with the idea that the camera shut off because the actions were considered disrespectful...public display of affections. *gasp* along with what the Victorians would have thought as quite scandalous behaviour. But who knows?
 
Here is a story from my neck of the woods.

The Dungarvon Whooper

The Dungarvon Whooper is a story of a young cook by the name of Ryan. He was hired to work in a lumber camp near the Dungarvon River. When he arrived at camp, he brought all his worldly possessions with him. Around his waist was fastened a money belt stuffed with coins and large bills. Nobody knew where he got the money, but the young cook made no secret of the fact that there was plenty of it. Ryan was a handsome fellow, tall and strong with ruddy cheeks and black, curly hair. He was well liked and could whoop and holler better than anyone in the camp; and a good strong shout was an accomplishment much valued among woodsmen.

Every morning Ryan was the first one up so as to prepare breakfast and fill the lunch pails with bread and salt pork. Then he would let out a tremendous ear-splitting whoop to get everyone up. After breakfast the men would go off to work leaving young Ryan alone.

It was an unlucky day for Ryan, for on this particular morning, the camp boss decided to remain with the young cook. The boss was a stranger, but he was respected and his orders were obeyed.

When the men returned late in the afternoon, they found young Ryan lying lifeless on the floor. He was dead and his money belt was gone.

When asked what had happened, the boss said the young cook had taken sick suddenly and died. None dared question him further but the woodsmen were suspicious. Where was the money belt?

That night a raging storm swept upon the camp making it impossible to leave so the men had to bury the poor cook in a shallow grave in the forest. As they trudged back to the camp they stopped dead in their tracks, for above the howling and moaning of the wind came the most dreadful whoops and screams anyone has ever heard. It continued all that night and all the next day driving the men crazy with fear. They left camp never to return.

For years the haunting sounds of the Dungarvon Whoop continued until Father Murdock, a priest from Renous, was asked to put the poor spirit to rest. From over the wilderness grave Father Murdock read some holy words from the Bible and made a sign of the cross. Some say Father Murdock succeeded in quieting the ghost but others declare the fearful cries of Ryan can be heard to this very day.

The whistle of the train that travelled by the Dungarvon would echo through the hills resembling the whoops of the ghost; hence the name of the train; THE DUNGARVON WHOOPER.

https://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/new-brunswick/dungarvon-whooper/
 
Back
Top