a ghost story

I'm holding off on a full update on the weekend until I can get some photos to accompany it. So far, only one roll is done - the others are recently found, black and white professional, and jammed in my camera (which is going into the shop tomorrow). The jammed camera is going to be the topic of this entry, as well as the circumstances leading to it and my newfound respect for the supernatural.

On Friday night, my newfound pards Mark, Mike, and Jake decided they wanted to go out on the battlefield at night on a ghost hunt. The three of them had numerous encounters with spirits in the past, and were swapping stories as we walked along. I'd never experienced anything of the sort, and was inclined to believe that most "ghost encounters" were merely figments of a willing imagination. Still, it was very creepy, walking down the rocky slope of Little Round Top, through the Valley of Death, past the Slaughter Pen, Plum Run, and Devil's Den, to our intended destination: ( Triangular Field. )

A little background for those unfamiliar with the battle: On July 2, John Bell Hood's Confederates made a poorly coordinated attack on the left flank of the Union army. After hours of brutal combat and literally thousands of deaths, the Army of Northern Virginia's best shock troops wore themselves out on Little Round Top and retired, keeping posession of the labyrinthine mass of boulders known as Devil's Den, from where they kept up an incessant sniper fire throughout ( the rest of the fight. )

Before the fight could progress to the Den, however, the Confederates had to advance across Triangular Field. This space of ground was staunchly defended by a Northern unit that I can't recall, who stopped an assault by Benning's brigade, made an abortive counterattack, and were finally forced with withdraw under heavy pressure, ( sustaining many casualties. )

The field is remarkable today in that it contains the bodies of the only soldiers still buried on the battlefield. Six Confederate bodies were buried by a rockfall before any graves detail could reach them, and noone could budge them. There is a large white rock over the resting place of these brave men, which noone seems to have any inclination to move. The names and units of the men are unknown, though they are likely members of Benning's brigade, which took the brunt of the initial fighting in the field.

Imagine, then, four boys between the ages of sixteen and twenty wandering out on this field dressed in the most authentic Yankee uniforms available at night. Mark, having been there before, refused to leave the path, but the others and I waded into the tall grass, imagining what the combat must have been like.

It was about the time we reached the rock at the foot of the field that we noticed the light. A little pinprick of green light hovering back in the dark woods, where the Confederates had swept forward. We began speculating as to what it could be, and shooting down each idea - not a camera light, as those are generally red and blink when recording; not a person, as it was unresponsive to calls, hurled rocks, and remained perfectly still the entire time; not a monitoring station or the like as some locals assured us that there were no electronics out in there; and not seemingly artificial as there was no access road to that particular location. It looked like a firefly stuck in the ON position, or as Jake put it, a permanently green traffic light that never went out.

"That's it for me," Mike declared, and turned to walk back. I thought I'd be wicked cool and go up through the field, following the assault route and giving the tourists (desperately following us with their flashlights from the stone wall) a treat. I took a step off the path.

Instantly, my heart rate shot up, my breathing became fast and panicked, and I felt sick to my stomach like a bout of extreme nervousness. Not knowing what came over me, I started for the stone wall, only to get progressively sicker and shorter of breath. I got the distinct feeling, cheesy as it sounds, that I was not alone. Wearing blue on a Confederate controlled section of a battlefield was evidently not a good idea. I was scared good and proper and started to run, trailing the others behind me as they scrambled to catch up.

Then I tripped over something, Mike panicked because I looked like I'd been shot, and grabbed me by the collar and began dragging me to the stone wall. He vaulted over it at full speed, with me close behind, bleeding from a cut on my hand and wondering what had knocked me over - nothing was visible on the ground where I'd fallen. It took a long time for me to get myself under control, and I was very skittish when the idea was floated to look for the green light from another angle. Sure enough, it was there - immobile, inexplicable, and seemingly closer to us. That was more than enough for us, and we retreated to a parking lot to look over the Slaughter Pen, which Mike flatly refused to enter and had the rest of us reluctant to leave the footbridge. ( Slaughter Pen after the battle. )

Our feelings of uneasiness increased as we crossed the Valley of Death and started up the south slope of Little Round Top - to the point where we were running up the ( hill. )

Finally, we reached Mark's car and sped to a miniature golf place where we discussed what we had seen over milkshakes. It was on that back porch that we formed our new mess, originally dubbed the Green Light Rangers and later changed to the Chitwood Guards.

And the camera? I took that camera, after loading it properly and taking several photos without hitch into the Triangular Field. That field is notorious for messing with cameras; when I went to remove the film I'd had in the field, it was hopelessly snarled and ripped in half inside the camera. I still want to say that it was me doing something wrong, but after Friday night, I am not sure.

At least half of the people reading this are going to be snickering and going "Yeah, sure." Before this trip, I would have been right in there with you. I never would have believed any of this without it happening to me, and happen to me it did. I returned to the field the next night, and as long as I stayed on the path I felt fine - stepping off the path or onto the Confederate rock produced immediate discomfort. It's truly one of the creepiest things I have ever experienced in my life - from now on I will take battlefield ghost stories with less salt.

Warning to Mollie: Don't read unless you're in a good mood

[excerpt from Gregory A. Coco's On the Bloodstained Field]

In the 2nd Corps hospital, one of the most pathetic incidents of the war occurred.

A young soldier, a mere boy, was brought in on a stretcher while a soldier walked alongside and held his hand on a wound in the thigh of the boy's body. He said he was entirely free from pain. A surgeon examined the wound and said, "Nothing can be done for you; you must die; if you have any word or message to send home, attend to it at once; you will die within a few moments after your comrade takes his hand from your wound, and that must be soon."

The soldier asked for paper and pen, which were quickly furnished. He wrote a letter to his mother, stated his condition and that a friend was holding the wound while he wrote to her, saying as soon as he finished the letter his comrade would let go and he would bleed to death in a few minutes.

The letter was finished, he let himself fall back, hesitated a moment, then said "Now you may let go," and Levi Smith, of Company A, 148th PA Infantry, who held the wound, withdrew his hand, and in a few minutes, life had gone out.

(Levi Smith, who enlisted August 25, 1862, was eventually transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps and survived the war. His company lost two men killed at Gettysburg - the young soldier mentioned may have been Jacob Lanich or Arron Miller, who enlisted on the same date as Smith and met their deaths in the Wheat Field; or one of seventeen others of the unit who died in the battle).