Civil War Ghosts – American Ghost Stories

The Dead of Antietam

[ad_1]

The Dead of Antietam, Civil War Historic Site

The Battle of antietam also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War, fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek. Part of the Maryland Campaign, it was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It was the bloodiest day in United States history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing.

After pursuing the Confederate general Robert E. Lee into Maryland, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan of the Union Army launched attacks against Lee’s army, in defensive positions behind Antietam Creek. At dawn on September 17, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee’s left flank. Attacks and counterattacks swept across Miller’s Cornfield, and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church. Union assaults against the Sunken Road eventually pierced the Confederate center, but the Federal advantage was not followed up. In the afternoon, Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s corps entered the action, capturing a stone bridge over Antietam Creek and advancing against the Confederate right. At a crucial moment, Confederate Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry and launched a surprise counterattack, driving back Burnside and ending the battle. Although outnumbered two-to-one, Lee committed his entire force, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters of his army, enabling Lee to fight the Federals to a standstill. During the night, both armies consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to skirmish with McClellan throughout September 18, while removing his battered army south of the Potomac River.

Despite having superiority of numbers, McClellan’s attacks failed to achieve force concentration, which allowed Lee to counter by shifting forces and moving along interior lines to meet each challenge. Therefore, despite ample reserve forces that could have been deployed to exploit localized successes, McClellan failed to destroy Lee’s army. McClellan’s persistent but erroneous belief that he was outnumbered contributed to his cautiousness throughout the campaign.

McClellan had halted Lee’s invasion of Maryland, but Lee was able to withdraw his army back to Virginia without interference from the cautious McClellan. McClellan’s refusal to pursue Lee’s army led to his removal from command by President Abraham Lincoln in November. Although the battle was tactically inconclusive, the Confederate troops had withdrawn first from the battlefield, and abandoned their invasion, making it a Union strategic victory. It was a sufficiently significant victory to give Lincoln the confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclamation, which discouraged the British and French governments from pursuing any potential plans to recognize the Confederacy.( THE DEAD OF ANTIETAM ),, It was at Antietam, the blood-churning battle in Sharpsburg, Md., where more Americans died in a single day than ever had before, that one Union soldier recalled how “the piles of dead … were frightful.” The Scottish-born photographer Alexander Gardner arrived there two days after the September 17, 1862, slaughter. He set up his stereo wet-plate camera and started taking dozens of images of the body-strewn countryside, documenting fallen soldiers, burial crews and trench graves. Gardner worked for Mathew Brady, and when he returned to New York City his employer arranged an exhibition of the work. Visitors were greeted with a plain sign reading “The Dead of Antietam.” But what they saw was anything but simple. Genteel society came upon what are believed to be the first recorded images of war casualties. Gardner’s photographs are so sharp that people could make out faces. The death was unfiltered, and a war that had seemed remote suddenly became harrowingly immediate. Gardner helped make Americans realize the significance of the fratricide that by 1865 would take many lives . For in the hallowed fields fell not faceless strangers but sons, brothers, fathers, cousins and friends. And Gardner’s images of Antietam created a lasting legacy by establishing a painfully potent visual precedent for the way all wars have since been covered.(Location= Washington County,
near Sharpsburg, Maryland)

[ad_2]

Source

Fort Gaines Phantoms

[ad_1]

Fort Gaines Phantoms :

Fort Gaines was established in 1821 and is best known for its role in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War, a Union victory which helped bolster President Lincoln’s bid for re-election just three months later. Despite erosion from intense storms in recent years, the site is one of the country’s best preserved Civil War-era masonry forts, and according to some the masonry is not all that has lingered over the years. Apparitions, shadowy figures, and other unusual sightings have been reported at the fort, as have cold spots and other strange phenomena.

This Fort may easily be the most haunted spots on Dauphin Island. Tales of wandering ghosts revolve around the stoic red brick facility on the extreme East End of the Island. Visitors at the Fort have reported seeing apparitions dressed in period attire on the grounds, skulking in the darkened recesses beneath the bastions, and atop nearby bunkers outside the walls. It was a moonlit night, not too long ago, that Island resident Ed Jones saw for himself the reality of the rumors. “It was a crisp, fall night with a half moon,” said Jones. “I had an old fraternity brother visiting me for the first time on the Island and we decided to run down to the East End near the Fort.”

“On a clear night the view of Mobile Bay and Baldwin County across the water is incredible, and I always enjoy sharing it,” he said. “We slowly drove to the turn-around behind the Fort when I caught a glimpse of a solitary figure on the ramparts.” “I slowed down and saw that it was a woman in a long, flowing skirt who appeared to be looking out into the Gulf,” said Jones. “My first thought was that she must be a re-enactor, but why would she have been there alone at night?” “As I watched, she turned her head slowly and stared silently at our car. Then like a glimmer she faded away,” he said. “It was a slow fade, not like someone disappearing down a stairwell or trying to hide. One second she was there, then … nothing.” “I knew that my friend had seen the same thing and for the longest time we were completely silent. Finally, in a hushed voice he asked, ‘did you see it?’ Yes I did,” Jones said.

“Though I often make the little trip to the Fort in hopes of seeing her again, the vision of the woman at Fort Gaines will be forever in my mind.”

[ad_2]

Source

Tod Carter, A Civil War Ghost Story – Franklin, Tennessee

The famous Captain Tod Carter had escaped from an old locomotive, he was being transported from a Union Soldier Prison on Johnson’s Island and being brought back home to fight the Battle at Franklin, Tennessee.

Captain Tod Carter, a famous Confederate States Army, had been took prisoner at Missionary Ridge. Captain Carter was one of thousands. Actually, there were more than six thousand Confederate captives that General Ulysses S. Grant sent to the north after the battles surrounding Chattanooga, Tennessee. Captain Carter’s long venture into Johnson’s Island was only the start of a sound-bound adventure that led him home to Franklin, Tennessee.

Future Captain Tod Carter joined the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment

Tod had enlisted in the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment, it had been formed by an older brother of his named ‘Moscow’. Colonel Moscow Branch Carter had mailed a letter to his brother Tod from Nashville on March 4, 1864. This letter provided more finite information on Tod’s capture. The letter was addressed to Captain Tod Carter, POW (Prisoner of War), Johnson’s Island, Ohio, Block 8, Mess No. 1.

The letter contained a good description of the Union occupation of Franklin, Tennessee, Moscow also added, “I have a little piece of news you many never have heard before. After your capture, your horse swam the river, and returned to camp in full rig. The boys thought for a long time you were killed, seeing your horse without you.”

However, Tod wasn’t still at the Johnson’s Island Prisoner Camp to read his brother’s letter when it was received. The story within his family is said that Tod had made a daring escape prior to it’s post date, “while crossing the State of Pennsylvania en route to a northern prison.” Tod, riding on a moving train in the pitch black northern night, Tod had pretended to be asleep, with his feet resting on the train window and his head was his seat companion’s lap.

Tod Brazenly Escapes from the Train

When a guard who had been patrolling the train looked the other way, Tod’s seating partner pushed him out the train window! When Tod’s absence became known, the train conductor stopped the train and a hunt for him scattered throughout the countryside. Much to Tod’s fortune, a northern farm couple found Tod and befriended him. Incognito, Tod moved his way up the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Memphis, Tennessee. From Memphis and on, Tod continued his trip to Dalton, Georgia, where his original enlisting party, the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment still lay encamped.

Almost seven months had passed and on November 28, 1864, Tod had held onto a paper that was signed by his commanding officer granting his permission to move ahead of his brigade and visit his home. Tod’s family was in Franklin, Tennessee, less than twenty five miles away.

Tod’s father had been waiting for him at home. His father was known as Fountain Branch Carter, aged 67. Tod’s older brother, Colonel Moscow, also a prisoner of war was at home as well on parole. Tod’s family also consisted of his four sisters and his beloved sister-in-law, nine nieces and nephews all very young. At his family home waited the farm animals and the good meals his servants prepared in the kitchen. As you could guess, he was very happy to be on his way back.

The Union Army at Tod’s Home in Tennessee

Unfortunately Tod’s family weren’t the only ones waiting at his home. Also at his home.. waited the Union Army. There was a Union Army of about twenty thousand men under General John M. Schofield who had marched to join the forces of General George H. Thomas at Nashville. During this trip, these troops encountered the Confederate Army under General John B. Hood and the battle of Franklin, Tennessee took place on the next day, November 30, 1864.

Historic Civil War Marker at Carter House

General Cox of the Union army had commandeered the Carter House to become a Federal Command post. Tod’s family somehow managed to warn off Captain Carter just as he had stopped at the home’s garden gate. Tod’s soldier duties as an Assistant Quartermaster were non-combatant, but that did not stop Tod from joining the battle. The Northern Soldiers had built breastworks across his father’s farm and had overrun his home. During this time, Tod feared for the safety of the Carter family in the overtaking.

Rosencrantz(Tod’s Horse), mounted by Captain Tod Carter’s steadfast and dashed through the Yankee works, through the guns of the Twentieth Ohio Battery. It was about five o’clock in the evening, Tod was in the lead of the charge in the center of Bate’s Division when Rosencrantz plunged forward, throwing Captain Tod over his head. Captain Tod hit the earth and without further movement. He had been mortally wounded to the head, about five-hundred feet south-west of his home. Right after the time of the midnight hour struck, the soldiers from both Union and Confederacy left the battle field, leaving their dead to rest in battle and the wounded to suffer.

Captain Tod is Found by his Family

After the battle the Carter family along with their servants, their neighbors and the Albert Lotz family emerged up from the cellar, all were unharmed and thanking God for their well-being and status. Before the families could finish their prayers in thanking god, a Confederate soldier came with the news that Captain Tod Carter still lay wounded on the battle field. Tod’s family climbed over the breastworks and trenches carrying old gasoline lanterns. It was just before the daybreak when they had found Tod, he was still laying on the cold ground, incoherently calling out a friend Sgt. Cooper’s name. Nearby lay Captain Tod’s horse, Rosencranz, large, grey and beautiful even in death.

Nathan Morris, Captain of Litter bearers, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. L.M. Bailey of Alabama moved Captain Tod into what was left of the family room, wrecked by war.

The regimental surgeon Dr. Deering Roberts probed for a bullet in Tod’s skull while his young nieces Alice Adelaide McPhail and Lena Carter held over a candle and small lamp. Despite any efforts of his family and Dr. Roberts, Tod Carter still met death on December 2, 1864, at the young age of only twenty four years-old. Tod died in the front sitting room across the hall from the bedroom where he had been born.

Till this day, there have been stories and legends of the battles of this war. Old artifacts of bullets, knives and shells found from the battlefield only confirm these tales. Some say you can still hear the gunfire in the Tennessee hills where Captain Carter charged upon the Union Army, taking many lives and giving his own. Some stories say you can hear his horse Rosencranz galloping in the woods on the old Carter farm, reliving the battle time and time again.