"Are Battlefields Haunted?" Topic

Are the sites of historical battles troubled by the spirits?

If you have ever passed by Gettysburg at dusk you know the answer to that one.

Edgehill is allegedly troubled by ghosts battling in the sky. So troubling that King Charles supposedly sent a Royal Commission to investigate. The report has not been found in the National Archive, but it is reported in a number of contemporary news sheets.
As a result of the Royal Commission the ghosts of Edgehill are claimed to be be the only officially recognised ghosts in the UK.

Edgehill is now an MoD site; during the Second World War workers on the site claimed to hear battle sounds late at night.

+1 to Bismark. Stand where Pickett started his charge; very uneasy feeling, and I don't usually go in for that woo-woo stuff!

Not per say a battle site but Andersonville, gave me the spooks. As to Gettysburg, I have been able to put the dog biscuit on Sallie Monument at night.

Cheriton is haunted by the sound of my dog inadvertently electrocuting his nether parts on an electric fence this morning:

link

..he is now made a full recovery, assisted by lots of snacks.

+1 to Bismarck. Was there in 2008 for 145th G'burg and took a day and visited the battlefield in uniform. Didn't think much about it until I was at Spangler Spring and Culps Hill…

There's a place at the Murfreesboro Battlefield (Stones River), known as "The Cold Spot". It's told that a company of infantry accidentally blundered right into the front of an enemy artillery battery who then gave them double cannister, and the infantry company was no more…

Another +1 to Bismarck.

Not if you don't believe in ghosts…I believe the feelings some of us feel at certain places are just subconscious feelings of empathy and understanding, based on our respect for the site or event.

Gettysburg at night in the park is eerie. My wife & I sat there for about 30 minutes& it was spooky.

Never experienced it personally on any battlefield, but a devoutly atheist friend told me she was badly shaken on an approach to Gettysburg--and at a point where she had not seen signs and did not realize Gettysburg was nearby.

I have been to Gettysburg over a dozen times and it never fails to make an impression on me at dusk. There is definitely a "feeling" of the past overlapping the present at that time of the day. Two of my nephews have gone with me the past two years, and they said that their favorite time was sitting on Little Round Top watching the sun set over the battlefield. Bismarck is right on the money!

Andersonville, Gettysburg and Franklin were the places I felt ill at ease in certain places as I walked the fields – hard to describe

Blue and Gray did several magazine pieces and a book documenting pieces; particularly around Gettysburg

Yet another +1 to Bismarck.

At the 250th of Carillon (Ticonderoga) there was an evening ceremony at the Cairn of the Black Watch and Montcalm's Cross. Attended by all ages and nationalities. After we walked back through the mist (it had rained in the afternoon and evening) we got back to camp and our children asked "who were the people in the woods watching?". They were between five and seven at the time. The innocent don't know what they can't see.

We get ghost hunters at Naseby. I am unconvinced, but as a battlefield guide, I have to be tollerant and open minded. So I have seen some of the 'evidence' collected on the special cameras and sensors.

It is odd that a lot of the phenomena is associated with locations that have little to do with the action itself but where a monument has been placed (i.e. that the ghosts of the fallen don't seem to know where the battlefield was) … however (discussing this point tactfully with them) the ghost hunters tell me that the monuments and the visitor activity around them act like beacons.

If monuments act like beacons, there may well be a lot of activity at Gettysburg.

Scepticism aside, battlefields certainly do have a sense of place.

Phil

Are the sites of historical battles troubled by the spirits?

This question has what is called a presupposition in it. That being that the person or people who are being asked the question believe in spirits. It's like asking someone if they have stopped beating their wife. It doesn't matter if that person answers yes or no because now they have just substantiated your presupposition that they beat their wife. The fake news media are masters of this type of manipulation.

So the question should be framed by first saying that if you are the type of person who believes in spirits and hauntings, do you believe they trouble historic battlefield sites?

To quote Richard Burton, gripping your tunic: "Were you there!?"

I'm a skeptic, etc., etc. but something strange this way comes at Gettysburg.

Spent 4+ years at G'burg, including a summer working at the park. Nothing remotely supernatural occurred in my experience. Doesn't mean it is not a powerful place, though.

I haven't noticed it at any of the places I visited. Powerful yes but not haunted.

I have even slept on the battlefield of Gettysburg just south of the copse of trees. There was a large group of reenactors camped near me they didn't seem to notice either.

Are you sure they were reenactors?

I will admit to taking a couple of photographs of a troop of Sea Scouts looking at HMS Warrior and getting nothing back from the photo shop when I got everything else on the roll. Probably a perfectly natural explanation, but I remember thinking how old-fashioned the Sea Scout uniforms were.

Odd you should say that Robert. I was at Portsmouth dockyard in 2019 and went on board the newly refurbished WW1 Monitor and what a superb job they have made of it. I loved the way they used re enactors on the mess deck and told the custodian how much I enjoyed it. He looked puzzled. It's a Naval dockyard he said. We don't use re enactors on the exhibits unless it's a specific occasion. I laughed uneasily. He was joking, right?

No. Not unless I've been drinking.

No.