Weird Georgia Confederate Spirit Identifies Itself

Barrycdog

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Buford, Georgia
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It was one of dozens of rearguard actions that took place in the spring of 1864 in northern Georgia. Union General William T. Sherman's superior numbers would threaten to lap around Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's flanks, and the Southerners would be forced to retreat again. Troops were left behind to slow the Federal advance, and if lucky enough they escaped to rejoin the main body of troops. In late May two men never returned. Killed along the railroad tracks at Adairsville, their bodies were consigned to the earth there, unidentified. The graves became a local landmark, lovingly tended by residents and railroad workers, who often wondered who the men had been.

Eventually, Mrs. Alice B. Howard asked the same question in a strange setting. It was around 1939 and Mrs. Howard had joined hands with others gathered for a table-tapping séance.

"Well, it started tapping," Mrs. Howard reported many years later. "We had a way worked out for the table to spell with an alphabet, and we got the name Jack Kirby and that he was one of the soldiers buried near the tracks. He named Tice Furrow, too."

Mrs. Howard says she "didn't believe in that sort of thing, but it happened."

She later learned that a letter had been found on one of the bodies and preserved. It had been addressed to T.W. Furrow. Mrs. Howard located another letter, written by one soldier serving in Georgia to another, which revealed that "something dire happened to Jack Kirby and Tice Furrow" at Adairsville.

Mrs. Howard then contacted the National Archives, seeking information about the two soldiers. Furrow was on record, but there were so many J. Kirby's that identifying one specific individual proved impossible.

Mrs. Howard continued her research and located a relative of Furrow, Carson Furrow, in Norfolk, Virginia. They "were able to find out that Tice Furrow and Jack Kirby had been neighbors and went off to war together," Mrs. Howard said. "That's good enough for me." Both men had belonged to Company I, 4th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry.

On the basis of this evidence, the Federal government prepared an official headstone for Furrow. Mrs. Howard ordered an identical stone made for Kirby and the pair was reinterred in East View Cemetery at Adairsville on May 1, 1974. Despite a drenching thunderstorm, dozens of people, including Mrs. Howard, Georgia Secretary of State Ben Fortson, a U.S. representative and a Georgia state representative, attended near the 110th anniversary of the men's deaths. The graves are on opposite sides of a narrow road that meanders through the hilltop site. On Confederate Memorial Day tiny Confederate flags are placed at both gravestones.

This remains one of my favorite stories, primarily because it was the first weird story I wrote for profit. It was published in FATE magazine in 1975, and I received a check for forty whole dollars.

Jim Miles is the author of two Weird Georgia books and nine books about the Civil War. See Jim's books.
Tagged with: Weirdness in Georgia

http://www.brownsguides.com/blog/weird-georgia-confederate-spirit-identifies-itself/
 
The fact that a letter naming one of them existed at the time of the table-tapping session makes me wonder how much baggage the people took with them to the seance. Could be that theories of the identities were already in circulation. Sorry to be the skeptic here, but not enough details show up in the story for me to regard it as a genuine manifestation of the supernatural. Still, I'm glad they got their headstones. May they rest in peace.
 
The question becomes, what was the 4th Va Reserves doing in Georgia. Here's Furrow's card. There isn't one in that unit for Kirby. Notice Furrow is sick in hospital as of Jan 20, 1865.
Furrow.jpg
 
I cant find it but there was a diary of a soldier named Bell from Adairsville. In the Diary he mentioned not being able to drink water because it had wiggletail (pollywogs) in it. I will find it at some point and post it here.
 
The story is real. I now own the home that the lady that did the seance grew up in and the soldiers were buried on what use to be the land that belonged to my home. The land has been subdivided over the years

Hello Candi Blalock.

Welcome to CivilWarTalk.

I can assure you, many of us would love to hear your stories.
 
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Hi also, Candi! Yes, I'd just been scrolling down thinking enlistment dates wouldn't always mean a lot. Have a grgrgrandfather whose first enlistment date is 1861, then has 2 more.

Thanks for bringing your house here! Have exactly no problem with Civil War ghost stories- last shreds of doubt vanished in a big hurry when my daughter ( who could not be less interested in the war ) went to Gettysburg College. Didn't have a good night's sleep until graduation, living in off campus housing.
 
In this day and age, there are better methods of investigating hauntings or other paranormal events. Table tappings or rapping on tables was a product of the 19th Century. The whole spiritualist movement started with such simple actions. Things have changed and even séances are rarely used. It would be interesting to see if a modern investigation would produce different results through the use of spirit boxes or other such devices, or through the use of other digital recording devices.
 
I read the story, but I'm still mystified as what the two were doing in Georgia. I think seances are bunk, and there seem to be any number of ways that Furrow's ID could have been known to the medium before the seance.
 
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