The Civil War battle that was fought at the small town of Gettysburg in July 1863 was the greatest conflict of the war. The fighting raged not only in the woods, fields, and hills around the town but up and down the streets and in the homes of the people who lived there.
After three days of intense fighting with cannon, guns, and men often engaged in vicious, brutal, desperate hand-to-hand mortal combat, there were almost 7,100 dead, 34,000 wounded, and 11,000 missing (captured or dead with body not found). When both armies pulled back, they left behind streets and fields littered with the bodies of the dead slowly decaying in the heat of the Pennsylvania summer. The people of Gettysburg were left with thousands of wounded to attend to and homes and businesses were turned into field hospitals. One local woman recalled, "Wounded men of both armies were brought into our homes and laid side-by-side in the halls and rooms. Carpets were so saturated with blood as to be of no further use. Walls were hideously bloodstained as were books which were used as pillows for the suffering men. In the streets and fields, the rotting corpses, swollen to twice their original size, actually burst asunder. Outside a home, several human, or inhuman, corpses sat up against a fence, with arms extended into the air and faces hideous with something very like a fixed leer." There are still many places throughout the town of Gettysburg where spirits from the battle are said to linger: homes, shops, hotels, and restaurants are said to be infested with ghosts and the unexplained.
People have on numerous occasions told of smelling peppermint in the air while walking around the area known as Cemetery Hill. Most have no idea that on the first day of the battle, the Confederates routed a large group of Northern soldiers who retreated through the town to a piece of higher ground where they made a desperate stand. The place where many of them died by the end of that day was Cemetery Hill. As the battles raged on for two more days, the bodies were left to rot in the hot July sun. After the battle was over, Gettysburg citizens had to retrieve and bury the decayed, rotting corpses. They were only able to withstand the awful stench by covering their noses with handkerchiefs containing pieces of peppermint.
The small college now known as Gettysburg College is a quiet place today, but in 1863, the college campus found itself in the middle of the fighting. Consisting only of 3 buildings then, it was used as a field hospital for the wounded and dying. The buildings still bear the scars of fired bullets from those terrible three days. Constructed in 1837, Pennsylvania Hall, a large stately building with tall white columns was originally a dormitory. Today it houses the campus administration offices. The Confederates captured the building after a skirmish and used the tall cupola as a lookout as well as a field hospital. Men were stationed as lookouts and even General Lee himself climbed the stairs to the top in order to keep an eye on the progress of the battles. Students and staff alike have reported seeing the figures of soldiers pacing back and forth long after the building has been closed and deserted for the night.
The terrible conditions of the field hospital are what have left the strongest impression on the old building. Many times people have reported hearing what sounds like men screaming. Most staff members refuse to work in the building after sundown. Two professors, both known to be honest, forthright, and avowed disbelievers of the supernatural, did work in the building late one night up on the 4th floor. When they entered the elevator to go down to the 1st-floor exit, the elevator for some reason passed by the first floor to the basement. The doors opened on a terrible scene. The basement storage room had vanished and in its place was the blood-spattered operating room during the battle. Wounded men were writhing in pain as doctors and orderlies in blood-soaked clothing operated on them with no anesthetic, dealing with bullet wounds by the preferred treatment of the time, amputation. Off to the side of the room was an area where men who could not be saved were laid, waiting to die. Next to the dying lay hundreds of amputated legs and arms. The professors said there was no sound, but in their heads, they could hear the horrible wails, groans, and screaming. They frantically punched the buttons of the elevator to shut the doors on the horrible scene, but they wouldn't close. Then, one of the doctors looked up after severing a leg and, while holding his saw in one hand and the amputated leg by the foot in the other, looked directly at the professors. He gestured for them to come assist in the operations that were taking place. The professors, frozen in fear, couldn't move. The doctor dropped the leg and his saw and began walking toward them. Mercifully, the elevator doors closed just before he reached them. The professors, although thoroughly shaken by their experience, continued to work in the building after that, but neither of them ever took the elevator again, preferring to exit the building by way of the stairs.
A widow lady by the name of Mary Thompson lived on a farm on the north side of Chambersburg Pike. During the battle, her home was used as headquarters by General Robert E. Lee. The house was also used as a field hospital for the wounded. The dead were moved into a barn across a dirt path from the house until they could be given a proper burial. As the battle raged, so many bodies were moved into the barn that they were "stacked up like cordwood," newer bodies piled on top of the previous ones in a grisly pyramid of the dead. Unfortunately, not every body piled there was dead. One of those men, so grievously wounded he was thought to be dead, was thrown onto the pile and soon became trapped beneath dozens of his comrades. At some point, he awakened to find himself alive but being almost suffocated beneath the weight of the grizzly remains. When the battle was over and northern troops began removing the bodies one by one three days later, one of them tugged on the leg of a body to disentangle it from the others. He was astonished when he finally tugged it free and the man's eyes popped open, his arms and legs began to twitch and terrible screams came from his lips. He had been alive, trapped beneath all those rotting bodies for four days, slowly going mad. A doctor was summoned, but nothing could be done. The man screamed and cried out incoherently for almost a week. He never regained his senses and died crying.
In the late 1800s, the widow Thompson died and the barn burned down. New owners built their home over the barn site. Shortly after moving in, the family began reporting odd sounds coming from their basement which were not the usual creaks and groans of a new house settling. One night, a loud explosion, "like a furnace exploding," came from the basement. Then the whole house began shaking as if it was in an earthquake. "The appliances, dishes, glasses, and cutlery were shaking violently and falling off the shelves. Furniture in the hallway was moving from one side to the other." Loud noises continued to come from the basement so the family members went to open the door leading down. Before opening it though, the door began to bow outward as if there was a great force on the other side. It sounded as if someone with a sledgehammer was pounding it. This was enough for the family to flee in terror.
The family refused to ever return to the house that had frightened them so badly. They did seek spiritual help from an old priest though and he went to bless the house. After his visit, he told the family that he had some experience with sending spirits on their way and he felt the need to perform a ceremony that would do this. He said he felt the house was haunted, not by an evil entity, but rather one they should pity. The spirit trapped in the house was a terrified young Confederate soldier who was desperately trying to free himself from the horrible place he was in before he died. A short time later, the priest performed the ceremony and marked the cellar door with a white cross with a circle around it. The family still refused to return to the house though and later sold it. The new family reported they never heard any suspicious sounds. The house is now owned by the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg and it remains quiet.
Another particularly sad story is associated with the old Jacob Hummelbaugh house. Located on Taney Town Road, it was just behind the Federal battle line. It was set up as the 2nd Corp field hospital. A Confederate general by the name of Barksdale was mortally wounded while leading his men in a charge against the northern troops. After repulsing the charge, Yankee troops collected the wounded and he was taken, still alive, to the Hummelbaugh house for medical treatment. According to written documentation, Doctors determined nothing could be done to save him so he was moved to the front yard and left to die. He repeatedly called for water so a young orderly fed water to him with a spoon until he passed.
Several weeks later, General Barksdale's wife came to retrieve her husband's body to return him home in Mississippi for burial. Along with the wife and her male helpers on the trip was the general's favorite hunting dog. Once the shallow grave of General Barksdale had been identified, the dog smelled around for a few seconds then laid down and began a mournful howl. Even after his master's body had been dug up and removed, the dog continued to lay next to the grave and refused to leave it. Finally, with the body readied for travel, the wife felt she had no choice but to leave the dog behind. Over the next days, the faithful dog became a familiar fixture. He would occasionally let out a pitiful, heartbreaking howl that could be heard all around the area, but in spite of offers of food and water, he refused to eat or drink or leave the gravesite. He eventually died of hunger and thirst, stretched out over his master's now empty burial place. Over the years since, every July 2nd, the anniversary of Barksdale's death, it is reported that an unearthly howl echos during the night as the faithful dog still grieves from a place beyond this world.
The small college now known as Gettysburg College is a quiet place today, but in 1863, the college campus found itself in the middle of the fighting. Consisting only of 3 buildings then, it was used as a field hospital for the wounded and dying. The buildings still bear the scars of fired bullets from those terrible three days. Constructed in 1837, Pennsylvania Hall, a large stately building with tall white columns was originally a dormitory. Today it houses the campus administration offices. The Confederates captured the building after a skirmish and used the tall cupola as a lookout as well as a field hospital. Men were stationed as lookouts and even General Lee himself climbed the stairs to the top in order to keep an eye on the progress of the battles. Students and staff alike have reported seeing the figures of soldiers pacing back and forth long after the building has been closed and deserted for the night.
The terrible conditions of the field hospital are what have left the strongest impression on the old building. Many times people have reported hearing what sounds like men screaming. Most staff members refuse to work in the building after sundown. Two professors, both known to be honest, forthright, and avowed disbelievers of the supernatural, did work in the building late one night up on the 4th floor. When they entered the elevator to go down to the 1st-floor exit, the elevator for some reason passed by the first floor to the basement. The doors opened on a terrible scene. The basement storage room had vanished and in its place was the blood-spattered operating room during the battle. Wounded men were writhing in pain as doctors and orderlies in blood-soaked clothing operated on them with no anesthetic, dealing with bullet wounds by the preferred treatment of the time, amputation. Off to the side of the room was an area where men who could not be saved were laid, waiting to die. Next to the dying lay hundreds of amputated legs and arms. The professors said there was no sound, but in their heads, they could hear the horrible wails, groans, and screaming. They frantically punched the buttons of the elevator to shut the doors on the horrible scene, but they wouldn't close. Then, one of the doctors looked up after severing a leg and, while holding his saw in one hand and the amputated leg by the foot in the other, looked directly at the professors. He gestured for them to come assist in the operations that were taking place. The professors, frozen in fear, couldn't move. The doctor dropped the leg and his saw and began walking toward them. Mercifully, the elevator doors closed just before he reached them. The professors, although thoroughly shaken by their experience, continued to work in the building after that, but neither of them ever took the elevator again, preferring to exit the building by way of the stairs.
In the late 1800s, the widow Thompson died and the barn burned down. New owners built their home over the barn site. Shortly after moving in, the family began reporting odd sounds coming from their basement which were not the usual creaks and groans of a new house settling. One night, a loud explosion, "like a furnace exploding," came from the basement. Then the whole house began shaking as if it was in an earthquake. "The appliances, dishes, glasses, and cutlery were shaking violently and falling off the shelves. Furniture in the hallway was moving from one side to the other." Loud noises continued to come from the basement so the family members went to open the door leading down. Before opening it though, the door began to bow outward as if there was a great force on the other side. It sounded as if someone with a sledgehammer was pounding it. This was enough for the family to flee in terror.
The family refused to ever return to the house that had frightened them so badly. They did seek spiritual help from an old priest though and he went to bless the house. After his visit, he told the family that he had some experience with sending spirits on their way and he felt the need to perform a ceremony that would do this. He said he felt the house was haunted, not by an evil entity, but rather one they should pity. The spirit trapped in the house was a terrified young Confederate soldier who was desperately trying to free himself from the horrible place he was in before he died. A short time later, the priest performed the ceremony and marked the cellar door with a white cross with a circle around it. The family still refused to return to the house though and later sold it. The new family reported they never heard any suspicious sounds. The house is now owned by the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg and it remains quiet.
Another particularly sad story is associated with the old Jacob Hummelbaugh house. Located on Taney Town Road, it was just behind the Federal battle line. It was set up as the 2nd Corp field hospital. A Confederate general by the name of Barksdale was mortally wounded while leading his men in a charge against the northern troops. After repulsing the charge, Yankee troops collected the wounded and he was taken, still alive, to the Hummelbaugh house for medical treatment. According to written documentation, Doctors determined nothing could be done to save him so he was moved to the front yard and left to die. He repeatedly called for water so a young orderly fed water to him with a spoon until he passed.
Several weeks later, General Barksdale's wife came to retrieve her husband's body to return him home in Mississippi for burial. Along with the wife and her male helpers on the trip was the general's favorite hunting dog. Once the shallow grave of General Barksdale had been identified, the dog smelled around for a few seconds then laid down and began a mournful howl. Even after his master's body had been dug up and removed, the dog continued to lay next to the grave and refused to leave it. Finally, with the body readied for travel, the wife felt she had no choice but to leave the dog behind. Over the next days, the faithful dog became a familiar fixture. He would occasionally let out a pitiful, heartbreaking howl that could be heard all around the area, but in spite of offers of food and water, he refused to eat or drink or leave the gravesite. He eventually died of hunger and thirst, stretched out over his master's now empty burial place. Over the years since, every July 2nd, the anniversary of Barksdale's death, it is reported that an unearthly howl echos during the night as the faithful dog still grieves from a place beyond this world.
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