The Whirlaway

NH Civil War Gal

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I found some great new material at a used book store, so I’m going to start slowly posting it this Fall so we can enjoy it and discuss sit.

I found a book called “Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War” by Christopher K. Coleman. It is about 20-years-old and has some new stuff I’ve never read.

This is a real weird story and I’ve never heard the like:

”Front Royal, the town where Sheridan’s troops murdered the rangers, was called H-e-l-town in frontier days. The Federals apparently had sought to make Front Royal live up to its original name. There is some evidence to suggest they succeeded, at least in part. Beginning in 1870, and continuing in approximately six-year-intervals well into the twentieth century, the community of Front Royal has been visited by a most appalling apparition.

A local squire who encountered this entity called the Whirlaway. Characterized by a violent outburst of wind shrieking through field and forest, the apparition at first appears to folk as a silver-green light that shimmers before the eye.

Out of this bright display of light emerges a figure, wearing a plain gray jacket and trousers, with a visored kept shading its face. Surrounded by a shining silver glow, to mortal eyes it seems as though one is looking at him underwater. The strange apparition is able to move faster than the eye can follow. Even standing still it appears to undulate.

The best documented appearance of the Whirlaway was in 1925. in the early autumn of that year, Mrs. Cook, a local resident, and her daughters were virtually besieged by the Whirlaway. Their house lay on a stone outcropping overlooking the Shenandoah, in the Riverton community near to Front Royal. That day the Cooks first felt a strong wind coming out of the river, then they heard the sound of heavy boots on the gravel path leading up to their house. As it coalesced into human form, the four women quickly bolted and barred every window and door. Yet the entity seemed able to move from the front to the back of the house in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, the entity never got in the house, though the women were terrorized by it for the better part of the afternoon. That same day, the Whirlaway paid a visit to folks on the other side of the river as well. Some years before that incident, Judge Sanford Johnson of Front Royal also had a terrifying encounter with the entity.

Who, or what, was the Whirlaway? According to local tradition, it may be a young man of the Civil War era who had inquired about joining Mosby’s command. mistaken for a guerrilla, the Yankees fell upon the lad with murderous intent. When they had finished with him, they dumped his body in front of a herd of stampeding cattle.

Whether the young man actually rode with Mosby or not is a moot point; local tradition claims he was a civilian. Yet, Mosby’s men had only the simplest of uniforms—generally something gray—and they were recruited from, fought around, and lived among the local populace. Their ability to merge into the civilian population was legendary, and so it may be true that the Whirlaway was actually one of Mosby’s men.”

Has anyone in the area every heard of this?
I, personally, would call this an elemental. What do you think?
Has this occurred in recent years?
 
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Who, or what, was the Whirlaway? According to local tradition, it may be a young man of the Civil War era who had inquired about joining Mosby’s command. mistaken for a guerrilla, the Yankees fell upon the lad with murderous intent. When they had finished with him, they dumped his body in front of a herd of stampeding cattle.
I find the stampeding cattle thing far-fetched. How would a small group of anyone have enough cattle, in starved Virginia, to stampede anywhere? And why would they let their cattle get out of control anyhow? That doesn’t make the least bit of sense to me. Cattle traveled, if they traveled at all, with a LARGE group of multiple regiments at the back and they didn’t stampede them.
 
It sounds a lot like a tornado. Screaming winds, pounding hail that sounds like footsteps, sky turning odd colors, limited visibility....
That was my thought, as well. Some tornadoes are smaller, and might cause similar phenomena without causing much physical damage. The problem with this theory is that I imagine most people in Virginia would recognize a tornado when they saw one. If witnessed at night or when obscured by torrential rain, then they might not actually see the tornado.

On the other hand, it might be a "haint."
 
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The tornado doesn’t explain the 6 year intervals or the boots on gravel sound. Calling @Rebforever @Viper21 @Jamieva @Reverend Ron @Stone in the wall anything in Virginia is more in “your neck of the woods” than mine in NH. Have you‘ve guys ever heard of this or know what to make of it?
The boots on the ground could have been the sound of hail. The really bad tornado I was in six years ago had a thunderous, rhythmic sort of banging on the roof just before all hell broke loose. Six year intervals could be a coincidence.
 
Sounds like the ghost of 17 year old Henry Rhodes. He was not part of Mosby's command, although he wanted to be. He had remained at home to take care of his mother. He grabbed a horse and followed after the Rangers and was captured. Story goes, he was dragged thru the streets of Front Royal behind a horse or horses. Then shot to death in front of his mother as she pleaded for his life.
 
We get Microburst's here, winds can be as strong as a tornado. Only hits a small area with straight line damage rather than a swirl, and leaves just as fast as it came. Hit here a few years back. Took down more that 1/2 dozen trees here and the same across the road, they all fell in the same direction and totaled two cars. Others had only tree branches come down.
 
That’s just awful.
I agree. Orders from Grant to Sheriden: "hunt down the families of Mosby's men. I think they should be taken and kept at Fort McHenry, or some other secure place, as hostages for the good conduct of Mosby's men. When any of Mosby's men are caught, hang them without trial"
I used to love to go to Front Royal and just take a ride on an nice old country road, "Goony Manor" it takes you to Brownstown. I think it may have been named after an old mine? Jackson used it to capture Front Royal in 1862,
 
I am intrigued by the reported sound of "boots on gravel" mentioned above. About 15 years ago I was solo deer hunting on a friends dairy farm a few miles east of the town of Culpeper, Virginia. It was late on a bright sunny November afternoon and dusk was approaching. I was sitting comfortably in a thick hedge that bordered a grass covered path leading from one cow pasture to another.

This spot was at least 1,000 yards from the farm house and adjacent to Mountain Run. My back was to a very tall knoll and I could clearly see both pastures from my vantage point and the grassy path was only 10 feet away directly in front of me. I had been sitting there in near total silence (except for cows mooing) for about 90 minutes watching a beautiful sunset. Darkness was starting to settle in across the fields and the temperature dropped sharply.

Quite suddenly, I was startled by the very loud sound of a large number of feet swishing through the grass approaching me from the left. I stood up to greet whoever was coming because I didn't want to get accidently shot by another hunting party. The wind was dead calm. This sound lasted for about 30 seconds and passed by from my left to right directly in front of me. When I saw that there wasn't anyone walking past, the hair on the back of my neck rose straight up. After the sound had faded away, I stood there frozen in disbelief for several minutes. I then very quietly slipped away under the cover of darkness tightly clutching my Remington 7mm Magnum.

On my way out, I stopped by the farm house to thank my good friend who owns the property. While standing there talking on his front porch drinking a cold beer, I asked as casually as I could muster, if he had ever had anything "strange" happen out there. He wanted to know what I meant, and so I told him what had occurred and he said. "Oh yea we see lights and hear things out there all the time."

Turns out that the exact site where I was hunting was an extremely large encampment for the Union Army during the Winter of 1863/64. I still hunt that property and have taken the kids camping and star gazing out there numerous times since, but haven't seen or heard anything "unusual" after that one incident. Thankfully....
 
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Thank you for sharing that @Reverend Ron. That’s the kind of stuff I really like hearing and it is very real, to me anyhow, because you weren’t trying to make it happen - it just happened to you. Almost like a time slip!

Something like that happened to my cousins many years ago, just 4 miles from me. They were in their Cape Cod style home on their farm, (from the late 1700s) just sitting in the living room in the early evening and this was quite a small house. The “boys” who were in their 20s were sitting there and suddenly they ALL heard a team of oxen come up the driveway and heard the harness jingling, the stepping of the oxen, and grunting noises they made. They stepped out to look and….. nothing. They still talk about it to this day.
 
I have had a few apparitions appear as a time out of place, sort of like the reflection one sees looking out of a lit room with a big glass window and darkness beyond. The reflection back of the interior is what a call 'a time out of place'. But the apparitions are outside mostly, and once I heard a Sioux Indian Chant audible as though the sound was somewhere beyond the physical realm. I have had two ghost apparitions appear in Florida, camping in wild wilderness at night. One was just a hand at the screen of my tent that seemed to part the opening and a real brown recluse entered. I was lucky to have seen and killed it. The second time was a bit further off, where some strange light seemed to be shimmering as though it was a holy place for the dead, very serene, reminding me of candles lit in a hallowed spot for memory. Rattlesnakes abounded in that area, both canebrake and eastern diamondbacks, and moccasins. I did see those two types of pit vipers while living there. It is a truly humbling experience to witness.
Lubliner.
 
I am intrigued by the reported sound of "boots on gravel" mentioned above. About 15 years ago I was solo deer hunting on a friends dairy farm a few miles east of the town of Culpeper, Virginia. It was late on a bright sunny November afternoon and dusk was approaching. I was sitting comfortably in a thick hedge that bordered a grass covered path leading from one cow pasture to another.

This spot was at least 1,000 yards from the farm house and adjacent to Mountain Run. My back was to a very tall knoll and I could clearly see both pastures from my vantage point and the grassy path was only 10 feet away directly in front of me. I had been sitting there in near total silence (except for cows mooing) for about 90 minutes watching a beautiful sunset. Darkness was starting to settle in across the fields and the temperature dropped sharply.

Quite suddenly, I was startled by the very loud sound of a large number of feet swishing through the grass approaching me from the left. I stood up to greet whoever was coming because I didn't want to get accidently shot by another hunting party. The wind was dead calm. This sound lasted for about 30 seconds and passed by from my left to right directly in front of me. When I saw that there wasn't anyone walking past, the hair on the back of my neck rose straight up. After the sound had faded away, I stood there frozen in disbelief for several minutes. I then very quietly slipped away under the cover of darkness tightly clutching my Remington 7mm Magnum.

On my way out, I stopped by the farm house to thank my good friend who owns the property. While standing there talking on his front porch drinking a cold beer, I asked as casually as I could muster, if he had ever had anything "strange" happen out there. He wanted to know what I meant, and so I told him what had occurred and he said. "Oh yea we see lights and hear things out there all the time."

Turns out that the exact site where I was hunting was an extremely large encampment for the Union Army during the Winter of 1863/64. I still hunt that property and have taken the kids camping and star gazing out there numerous times since, but haven't seen or heard anything "unusual" after that one incident. Thankfully....
YIKES!
 
Thank you for sharing that @Reverend Ron. That’s the kind of stuff I really like hearing and it is very real, to me anyhow, because you weren’t trying to make it happen - it just happened to you. Almost like a time slip!

Something like that happened to my cousins many years ago, just 4 miles from me. They were in their Cape Cod style home on their farm, (from the late 1700s) just sitting in the living room in the early evening and this was quite a small house. The “boys” who were in their 20s were sitting there and suddenly they ALL heard a team of oxen come up the driveway and heard the harness jingling, the stepping of the oxen, and grunting noises they made. They stepped out to look and….. nothing. They still talk about it to this day.
Great story NH Gal!
Yea, I'm not the kind of guy that can't sleep if the closet door is open in a bedroom, nor do I have to check behind the shower curtain each time I walk into the bath or look under the bed for monsters. However, I have experienced a few bizarre incidents over the past few decades of my life. I never think about them until someone introduces the topic of "strange occurrences" into the conversation, and then they pop back into my head.

I still solo hunt/hike/camp out in the woods and prefer to sleep on the bare ground versus in a tent so I can see trouble coming. Although I limit my camping to the cold months of the year because of poisonous snakes and bugs as Lubliner has so accurately pointed out, can be a problem when primitive camping.
 
Great story NH Gal!
Yea, I'm not the kind of guy that can't sleep if the closet door is open in a bedroom, nor do I have to check behind the shower curtain each time I walk into the bath or look under the bed for monsters. However, I have experienced a few bizarre incidents over the past few decades of my life. I never think about them until someone introduces the topic of "strange occurrences" into the conversation, and then they pop back into my head.

I still solo hunt/hike/camp out in the woods and prefer to sleep on the bare ground versus in a tent so I can see trouble coming. Although I limit my camping to the cold months of the year because of poisonous snakes and bugs as Lubliner has so accurately pointed out, can be a problem when primitive camping.
Now it seems to be bears and alligators, and wild dogs. All these are very dangerous.
Lubliner.
 
Now it seems to be bears and alligators, and wild dogs. All these are very dangerous.
Lubliner.
I forgot to mention that I never go into the woods unprepared to spend the night and/or unarmed even if it just a "day hike". Critters both four and two legged can be dangerous anywhere you go. That's why just like the infamous Confederate Spy, Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow I always sleep with a pistol in my bed roll.
 
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