Maybe Rachel simply wanted something to rip up into bandages. Like so many visitors to Gettysburg, Rachel, too, may see the bloodied apparitions of the wounded. It’s only natural that she wants to help.
————
GETTYSBURG NATIONAL MILITARY PARK
91 Taneytown Road
Gettysburg, PA 17325
(717) 334-1124
————
THE BEST WESTERN GETTYSBURG HOTEL
One Lincoln Square
Gettysburg, PA 17325
(717) 337-2000
Friendly Fire
When employees of the museum in Fort Monroe, Virginia, are asked about the ghosts, they reply, “We are not supposed to talk about it.”
The fort, named for United States President James Monroe, was completed in 1834 and is surrounded by a moat. Still an active army post, the stone fort is situated on the tip of the Virginia Peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay.
Despite the authorities’ orders to keep the ghost stories quiet, the accounts still circulate. Some say that the tall, thin specter of Abraham Lincoln has been spotted in the officers’ quarters. Others claim to have seen a woman in a gauzy white dress floating through part of the fort so haunted that it is known as “Ghost Alley.”
Throughout the area, mysterious laughter is sometimes heard, and objects inexplicably vanish.
This vintage image of Fort Monroe, Virginia, was photographed around 1913. (author’s collection)
An antique postcard depicts the entry to haunted Fort Monroe, Virginia. (author’s collection)
It is possible that some of the fort’s ghosts remain earthbound because of a tragedy a century ago. It was July 22, 1910, when the wives and children of artillerymen were invited to watch target practice. The men were instructed to pretend an imaginary fleet was passing the fort on the way to Washington.
It was to be the grandest target practice to date, but fate had an ugly plan.
As family members looked on, a powder charge exploded, blowing a few of the men to bits. Eleven were killed, and many others injured.
After such a devastating accident, it is no wonder that Fort Monroe is haunted.
This rare postcard shows a group of men shortly before many were killed in a horrific accident at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1910. (author’s collection)
Ghosts in the News
No Bones about It
THE DISCOVERY OF a Civil War skeleton sheds light on the spooky happenings at a Texas library, according to the August 21, 2004, issue of the El Paso Times.
Employees of the El Paso Library have seen two specters: a tall man they call “the captain” and a woman dubbed “the nurse.” The apparitions materialize in a storage area in the library’s sub-basement, twenty feet underground.
While digging in a site behind the library, workers recently unearthed an old skeleton believed to be a soldier, because the area was a military graveyard in the 1860s. Though the cemetery was later relocated, a few skeletons—and perhaps their ghosts—were left behind. Another skeleton was dug up during work on sewer lines in 1998.
Items move on their own, odd noises interrupt the peace, and water faucets turn themselves on at the library, according to the report. Longtime employee Terri Grant told reporter Daniel Borunda that an invisible presence once shoved her while she was investigating a noisy ruckus in a vacant section of the library. “I was not scared enough to quit,” she said.
seven
Afraid of the Light
“When killers die, they never remain as ghosts.”
When the speaker made that bold statement, no one in the audience challenged him. I, however, wanted to leap from my chair and protest. But I had already finished giving my talk, and it was his turn to speak.
We were at a paranormal conference, and I was listening to the session taught by one of my peers, a man well-respected in the field.
I bit my lip, wondering how he could know such a thing. He possesses no special powers. He can’t know any more about the other side than the rest of us. He confirmed my contention that the term “ghost expert” is an oxymoron.
By their very nature, ghosts are mysterious and elusive beings. Out of reach and seldom seen, their secrets are hidden in the fleeting shadows.
We can collect witness accounts, measure energy levels in haunted sites, record ethereal voices on tape, and capture images on film.
When psychics scrutinize the afterlife, they sometimes provide explicit details about ghosts, but even their insights aren’t certainties. We can study phenomena around a haunting but still have more questions than answers. I suspect that the only real ghost experts are ghosts themselves.
Though I held my tongue and did not contradict my fellow speaker, I and other ghost re se arc hers have thick files on hauntings by killers.
I wonder if the evil ones remain earthbound for the same reasons as the innocent. Are they confused or shocked or simply attached to this plane? Maybe murderers have an entirely different reason for staying.