Weird question.....

[Dullknife]

So has anyone felt that they have experienced anything supernatural at a Civil War site? Feelings, sightings, anything?

---John
PS....who wishes he could actually see a ghost someday at a battle site colonial or post colonial....

 

[Stryker65]

Glitch in the matrix story: My ex-girlfriend was on vacation in Williamsburg, Va with her family in the early 2000s. As everyone knows here, Williamsburg has a lot history to it including Civil War. They went out at night for a ghost tour of the town with a guide. My ex-gf brought her camera and was taking pictures of the insides of the old homes through the windows hoping to capture a ghost or an orb. She was showing the tour guide the pictures on the camera to see if the guide could see anything. The guide stops my ex on a photo of a staircase in a house. She tells her that staircase hasn't existed in that part of the house since it was renovated in the 19th century. They go back to check and there wasn't a staircase. I didn't believe the story until my ex's mom showed me the photo they had of it on their old desktop computer. I forget the house but I remember later visiting Williamsburg with my ex and her pointing out the house to me.

I currently live in Williamsburg for college (William & Mary '29), and we sure do get stories like this all the time!

 

[east_beast]

Honestly, no. And I lived in Charleston for quite some time which is widely known as one of the most haunted cities in America.

 

[7th Texas Mounted Rifles]

I've experienced many things that I was perhaps not equipped to simply explain away…

But never once did I humor the possibility of ghostly or supernatural causes.

 

[7th Texas Mounted Rifles]

(With the utmost of respect and compassion to all members on this thread, of course…)

The 'feelings' thing at a location isn't supernatural.

Those places should feel somber, or eerie, or bleak to those who are literally there because it is a battlefield… you know there was death there and can respect the gravity of the situation.

You go to a cemetery - I don't think anyone is not aware that they are merely feet away from a corpse/human remains. That puts some people on edge.

The Holocaust museum feels a certain way, rightfully - it's a memorial to/surrounds you with images of and belongings of murdered innocents.

Hospitals - people are probably more predisposed to think 'death', 'sickness' and 'suffering' as opposed to 'healing' and 'happiness'?

I believe most folks would be surprised at the number of places they have been - a public crosswalk, a house, a hotel room, etc - that someone has died - perhaps even a violent death - and you didnt even know it, nothing registered.

If it isn't historical in nature, most communities don't 'celebrate' or advertise such. It's bad for business/resale value/etc.

Make it public knowledge - then the imagination starts taking over - and the reports start coming in.

I've experienced many things that I was perhaps not equipped to simply explain away with science or logic… but never once did I humor the possibility of ghostly or supernatural causes.

I would genuinely be interested in seeing the correllation between the data for 'have you seen a ghost?' vs. 'are you religious?'.

I'd bet the majority of 'yes' to the first results in a second 'yes' as well.

I've never met an atheists that believed in ghosts…?

And I've met plenty of 'atheists in foxholes', too.

With that said - I kinda wish ghosts DID exists, and the Ouija board **** was real.

Most everyone I really want to have a conversation with has been dead 150+ years, haha.

 

[east_beast]

I don't hold a strong opinion on whether or not ghosts or spirits or other things classified as supernatural "exist" or not. I mean, a lot of the same people that would scoff at such ideas will then turn around and tell you about how real things like dark energy and dark matter are. I think there are likely a lot of things about "reality" that we don't understand.

 

[archieclement]

All good points, I don't know. I personally like the Thomistic view of metaphysics and epistemology to understand the world. The ability of "right reason" in humans can lead to an understanding of the unknown. I think there is a good amount of experiences that can be rationally explained but I don't know about that remaining part. I think anyone who is intellectually honest at least allows room for the unexplainable

I was curious as have heard it claimed near death experiences attune people more to "other side".....

But as one who 12 years ago had a massive heart attack and respiratory failure and had to be revived..........I haven't noticed anything, and have frequented supposedly haunted places. Though Villisca Axe murder house is still on to do list.

 

[Dave D]

Over a period of a few days in the late 90s I went to Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, abd Spotsylvania.

At the Wilderness I got a sensation of dread. Like I was walking into the very worst place on earth. Like I shouldn't have been there.

My wife and I went on a ghost hunt in St Augustine that made our hair stand on end, but thet is the closest I can say for a battlefield.

I have ancestors who fought at the Wilderness - 50th Virginia Infantry of Jones' Brigade, deployed at the western edge of Saunders field, south of the Orange turnpike (modern day, route 20). One of these was a cousin of my great grandfather who was killed when his regiment was overrun during the opening actions of the battle on May 5th, 1864. Later that day, the Virginians repulsed the Union attack and regained their original positions where they dug trenches and built battle defenses all along the edge of the open field. I have visited the battlefield twice in an effort to identify the likeliest area where my ancestors were deployed.

Official reports, diary entries, and letters home by surviving members of the brigade describe how they recovered the bodies of friends and relatives who had been killed and buried them on the battlefield. The Union regiments were still nearby, observing and sniping at the Confederates from their trenches on the opposite side of the field. That being the case, the Virginia burial details would have had to stay well back of their battlements to avoid becoming targets for the Union sharpshooters.

This area of the battlefield is on the reverse slope of a ridge, just west of the remnants of the Confederate trenches - it is now covered in a new growth forest of deciduous trees with a thick canopy and fairly open floor. When I walked back into this area to see where any graves may have been placed, it was utterly quiet ... no bird sounds, no rustling leaves - not even the sounds of the highway barely 100 yards away - it was eerie. When I walked back out into the light of the open field, the normal sounds returned.