Historically, Gettysburg is one of the most significant battles fought during the American Civil War. In June 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into the Union stronghold of Pennsylvania and over the first three days of July, the Union Army of the Potomac met the Confederate invaders and defeated them at a small town called Gettysburg. It is seen as the great turning point in the Civil War. Most historians agree that from a strategic standpoint, Gettysburg was the Confederacy’s last chance at victory.
By spring 1863, the Confederate task was becoming increasingly difficult. One of the reasons Lee invaded the North was to ease the strain on Southern resources. Almost the entire war had been fought on Southern soil, which had taken a financial and physical toll on the Confederate states. Lee also believed that another crushing Union defeat, especially on Northern soil, might force President Abraham Lincoln to end the war and leave the Confederacy alone. Add to this the possible benefits a Confederate victory could have in persuading both Great Britain and France to recognize, and support, a new Southern nation, and the benefits seemed to outweigh the risks. In reality, however, the fate of the Confederacy hung in the balance.
The enormity of the battle and the absolute devastation it inflicted on human life cannot be overstated. In 1860, Gettysburg was a small town of about 2,400 citizens. For three hot, humid days in July 1863, two huge armies came crashing on top of them. Eighty-two thousand Union soldiers and 75,000 Confederates pounded into each other like two freight trains. The thought of 157,000 American soldiers having at each other in a town of 2,400 people is hard to imagine. When the fighting was over, approximately 51,000 of these soldiers were casualties. Of this number, 7,058 died in combat, 33,264 were wounded and of those wounded at least a quarter of them died from medical complications. Add to this 10,790 soldiers who were either captured or declared missing in action, and you’re left with unimaginable carnage. This represented the largest number of casualties in any battle of an already-bloody war—a casualty rate of more than 32 percent! The total American population in 1863 was only 31 million, which makes the percentage of households affected by this one battle staggering.
Gettysburg took on an even greater mythical quality when President Lincoln decided to accept an invitation to speak at the dedication of a cemetery for many of the soldiers killed in the battle. During this ceremony, Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. His speech, considered one of the most brilliant by any statesman in history, resonated with hope and national unity at a time when people were numb from the death and destruction secession had brought. Lincoln’s words read like poetry with phrases such as “conceived in liberty” and “all men are created equal.” Perhaps the most stirring part resides in the words “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln’s brilliant speech made the battle even more significant historically, as both continue to define the broader, philosophical meaning of separation, suffering, and reunion.
In three days of fighting, there were more than 51,000 casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
All of these factors add up to Gettysburg representing the perfect environment in which to conduct paranormal field research. The overwhelming number of documented paranormal experiences in Gettysburg suggests that, as Gov. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Civil War general, eloquently stated in his dedication speech to the Maine monuments in 1888, something does stay and spirits do in fact linger. Even when we use critical, objective, scientific reasoning to discount the majority of these experiences as misinterpretations of normal events, a wealth of compelling, corroborative, verifiable evidence remains, including scientific data and video, still photographs, electronic sound recordings, and first- and second-hand eyewitness testimony from our investigations alone.
We knew that focusing our attention on Gettysburg would give us the best chance of validating the haunting experience and prove that the soul, or at least a part of human consciousness, survives bodily death. Research has shown that there’s a higher percentage of paranormal activity at locations where emotions ran high and trauma was involved, which makes battlefields great places to conduct paranormal research.
Gettysburg is replete with ghost stories. Tens of thousands of visitors, as well as people who live in Gettysburg and around the battlefield, have had their own personal ghostly encounters with the ghost soldiers who still reside there. Gettysburg is a well-documented paranormal vortex. Everything from harrowing firsthand accounts to hard data—still photographs of apparitions, videos of walking ghost soldiers, the captured voices of the dead, and other paranormal activity—make Gettysburg the perfect location to explore haunted history.
Patrick’s Story
When I was fifteen, my mom and I spent the entire summer at our second home in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. There wasn’t a whole lot to do there, but a friend of my parents, known to me as Colonel Boyer, a venerable older gentleman who served through both World Wars, got hold of me when he found out I was in town and asked if I could help unpack and organize some of his books, which were too heavy for him to heft around. So of course I agreed.
The Colonel’s book collection was outstanding—every book you could imagine written on military history was there. During the second week of organizing, I came across a box that was tucked away in a corner. The books inside had that musty, haven’t-been-read-in-a-long-time smell. I picked up the first book and discovered the wonderful world of Official Reports of the Battle of Gettysburg, and that summer I read the entire book of reports, which were written by Union and Confederate commanders who participated in the battle. I’ve been hooked on history—especially military history—ever since.
Once I became interested in investigating haunted phenomena, I decided to follow my heart and focus on battlefields. There are several reasons for this. First and foremost, William Tecumseh Sherman, a well-remembered Union general, once stated simply, “War is hell.” If you accept this description as accurate and apply it to certain theories associated with paranormal phenomena, then battlefields represent the most likely places on which to capture paranormal evidence due to their association with profoundly traumatic events. In a haunted house, you’re usually dealing with strong emotions manifested by one or maybe dozens of people over several decades. On battlefields, unspeakable and horrific emotions emanated from thousands of men in a very short period of time. The bottom line, as Jack likes to say, is that “battlefields can’t be matched from an emotional intensity standpoint, and as such they represent the best ‘outdoor laboratories’ paranormal investigators have at their disposal to conduct valuable field research.”
Another reason, perhaps stemming from a deeper spiritual urge as a sensitive to spirits, is that I honestly feel drawn to these ghost soldiers. The heroic and unfortunate souls who sacrificed everything on battlefields across the globe have stories to tell, and I want to share these stories with others in honor of their sacrifices. When visiting battlefields, I often wonder to myself, “What was it like fighting on this particular spot for these boys?” and “What horrors did they endure while trying to act courageously and survive at the same time?” For whatever reason, I feel compelled to know these things … maybe because we owe it to them in some way …
to understand, no matter how sad or painful that knowledge might be.
When I first visited Gettysburg as a young teenager, I was walking around the popular places with my friends from school when I had my first paranormal experience on a battlefield. Standing at the top of Little Round Top and looking down into the Valley of Death, I could see Devil’s Den. I asked aloud to my friend standing with me, “What was it like fighting here?” and I heard a deep voice say, “Hell!” I looked at my friend and asked if he said something. He shook his head “no” and walked off to catch up with our friends, leaving me standing alone, wondering who could have answered my question.
The next time I went to Gettysburg was in 2000 to conduct my first paranormal investigation, and since that night I’ve visited the battlefield two to three times a year. Over the course of those visits, I’ve had incredible experiences and gathered some amazing verifiable evidence. I discovered at a young age that I was a sensitive, one of those people who could see, hear, and communicate with those who have left their mortal bodies behind. I didn’t really pursue developing my psychic abilities until I got out of the military years later.
Now when I go to Gettysburg, it’s like a reunion for me. I feel like the ghost soldiers know who I am and know that I’m simply trying to capture a bit of their story, what I call “history through the eyes of the participants.” There have been certain spirits who wanted to “cross over,” and I’ve helped facilitate that process for them. Sometimes when I go back to areas like The Triangular Field, Bliss Farm, or Cemetery Ridge, some of these ghost soldiers pop in just to say “hey.” For me, Gettysburg holds a fascination that’s hard to explain. There will always be a part of me that resides there.
Jack’s Story
From the time I was a little boy, I’ve been fascinated with the American Civil War. In fact, when I was six years old, I remember my mom taking me to the library to check out the same book over and over again—American Heritage Battle Maps of the Civil War. The maps created by David Green-span in this particular collection captured my imagination, as I envisioned how incredible it must have been to live in that critical time in American history and fight in such grand battles. As I grew older and the realities of war became clearer to me, I still longed to know what it must have been like, but with a keener sense of the horrifying and senseless nature of warfare.
In 1995, I had an experience at a haunted plantation in Louisiana that changed my life and catapulted me into the world of paranormal research. As I learned about the nature of hauntings and how to properly investigate historic locations, I began to understand more about the human condition. History, after all, is a reflection of humanity, and it became apparent to me that emotional imprints remain wherever strong human emotions were experienced. Whether in a house where a murder was committed, an orphanage where children were abused, or a battlefield where men were violently massacred, it’s always the same. Something lingers—an energy, a feeling, a spirit—that tells us something about the people who were there at specific moments in time.
For me, Gettysburg represents the ultimate haunted location due to the man-made maelstrom that was perpetrated there during three days of carnage in July 1863. Excruciating pain, suffering, sorrow, hopelessness, sadness, paralyzing fear, and death overwhelmed that small Pennsylvania town and surrounding battlefield, scorching every inch of it with an emotional residue that remains there to this day.
I feel fortunate to have spent time in Gettysburg over the years, immersing myself in its history and searching within it for answers to some of life’s most perplexing mysteries. From a paranormal research standpoint, it’s a perfect field laboratory. From a personal standpoint, I’ve been touched by phenomena that still escape rational explanation, and I’ve grown as a person and expanded my perception of reality because of it. But mostly, I continue to be humbled by what more than 150,000 men experienced there in 1863 … humbled by their sense of duty and sacrifice. When it comes to Gettysburg, nothing has changed much since I was a little boy. My curiosity still drives me to understand more about what it must have been like for these men. Thankfully, as a result of the energies and emotions that still linger there, I feel like I’ve been able to catch glimpses of the past, and to know, at least partially, what it must have been like for those who experienced it.
When we met at a conference some years ago at Gettysburg, we immediately knew that we were kindred spirits. We talked all night and into the early hours of the morning with a group of friends and associates. It soon became apparent, as one of our mutual friends and researchers pointed out, that we viewed the area of battlefield paranormal research from the same perspective. Add to that our mutual love of all things historic, and a fast friendship developed.
At that conference, we had a chance to talk about our various theories and techniques for investigating battlefield hauntings. By the end of the conference, we agreed that attempting to communicate with the ghost soldiers, as well as experiencing the strong residual energies associated with battlefields, gave us a unique and very rare opportunity to “touch history.” We believe these anomalies act as time machines, enabling us to transcend time and space in order to touch the past.
We also strongly believe that we can capture, and validate with the help of science, a genuine historic moment in time. We also feel that we can more accurately predict when paranormal phenomena might manifest by amassing a library of data that include details of the various conditions typically present before, during, and after the paranormal event occurs. By studying the patterns associated with ghostly phenomena, we feel it increases our chances of being at the right place at the right time; a luxury that field investigators don’t usually enjoy.
With the writing of this book, our goal is to bring these historic moments to life and give readers the opportunity to experience living history through the eyes of both eyewitnesses to paranormal events and the actual participants of the battle! Ghost Soldiers of Gettysburg is a collection of experiences, many of which can be supported by verifiable evidence and further validated by modern-day scientific theories. By using various electronic devices, such as EMF detectors and natural trifield meters to gauge the electromagnetic field fluctuations; setting up infrared video camcorders in strategic locations; and taking still photos of the environment with both digital and 35mm cameras, we can best capture the kind of tangible evidence required to satisfy the scientific method. We also use digital audio recorders to capture the voices of ghost soldiers and utilize a method of capturing these voices with a technique called “The Double-Blind Ghost Box,” developed by our good friends Shawn Taylor and Dan Morgan.
Based on our experiences, we feel it is just as important to acknowledge the benefit of having sensitives (aka mediums) on the team. People with the ability to recognize potential locations that are more prone to paranormal activity, and sensitives can help field investigators determine where to set up equipment and focus their attention. By bringing along those who possess a heightened awareness of the spirit world and who sometimes have the ability to communicate with the spirits of fallen soldiers, we dramatically increase our capture rate in regards to ghostly activity. Our documented evidence includes photographs and video recordings of apparitions and shadow walkers, sound recordings of discarnate voices and the sound of battle, and measured changes in both temperature and electromagnetic fields in the environment.
From a research standpoint, we always start with the history of the battle. By knowing everything about the regiments that fought in a particular area, we not only obtain a clearer picture of the events that took place, but we can also attempt to communicate with the ghost soldiers on a more intimate level. Our research takes us to the individual men in the company. By reading their diaries and the letters they sent home, we gain a better understanding of their everyday lives as soldiers, as well as the intimate details associated with their strongest emotions felt in the heat of battle.
The book is written in an easy-to-understand format. Each day of the battle is separated into parts that begin with a brief description of what occurred that day. This is followed in chapter format by the stories associated with that particular day. Each story is also set by specific location. We did this so that those of you who aren’t familiar with the details of the battle can easily follow the stories as they progress through the actual phases of the conflict. We also did this so that those of you who are brave enough can go to the locations where the paranormal events occurred and perhaps encounter the ghost soldiers for yourself.
Our ultimate goal for this book is to share the evidence we’ve accumulated over the years in order to provide people with a better understanding of not only paranormal phenomena, but of the hardships and horrors tens of thousands of soldiers—many merely boys—experienced when they fought at Gettysburg for three days in July 1863. After all, they deserve to have their stories told.