Long After Death: A Gettysburg Ghost Tour

A Harvest of Death by
Timothy O'Sullivan. Maintained at
the Getty Museum in LA

A three day battle resulting in 50,000 casualties including 8000 American lives lost. 165,000 troops, 653 cannons, and more than 46,000 horses and mules were used between both sides. Still the legends of those who fought and the battlefields they bled on loom larger than even these staggering numbers. The names and places are iconic: Robert E. Lee, Joshua Chamberlain, The Irish Brigade, Little Round Top, Pickett’s Charge. Like many Americans, I’ve been infatuated with the Civil War since I was a kid, and although I was born and raised less than a day’s drive from the battlefield, it wasn’t until I was in my early 30s and living in California before I finally made plans to visit the historic site of Gettysburg in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

I was making some routine plans to visit family in Kentucky during the month of May when I decided to tack on a three day side trip to Gettysburg prior to arriving in the Bluegrass. I took a Delta flight into Harrisburg, PA, where I rented a slick, black Dodge Challenger, driving it the remaining 40 miles south to Gettysburg.

Image in Sach's Bridge
from Destination Gettysburg

Several weeks prior to my trip I did a little research online to find a good hotel near the battlefield and found out the town is peppered with inexpensive little bed and breakfast houses decorated in lovely old-fashioned Americana and serving delicious local dishes: fried chicken, pot roast, dumplings and gravy, boiled greens, apple pie. I made reservations for two nights at a peaceful and well-kept B&B called The Gaslight Inn located near what would be considered “downtown” Gettysburg.  It’s within walking distance of the battlefields, but to really enjoy your visit a set of wheels is a must.

Instead of doing a blow by blow of the traditional tourist spots at Gettysburg, I want to describe one of my more memorable experiences from the trip which was my evening with a group of ghost hunters on a haunted tour of the battlegrounds with the celebrated Miss Betty. Miss Betty’s ghost tour was recommended to me by the hostess of the Gaslight Inn and I quickly called her up and made a reservation at my first opportunity.

Another photo from Sach's Bridge of
a figure.  Photo from Dark Shadows
Ghost Tours.

The next night, a small group of maybe ten ghost hunters met up with Miss Betty in the nearby elementary school parking lot. We packed into a small caravan of three cars led by Miss Betty towards the outskirts of town where the old Sachs Covered Bridge straddled across Marsh Creek. Since I was the only person who arrived solo I rode with Miss Betty in her little car where I discussed with her my desire to witness any sort of supernatural phenomenon even though I was a devout skeptic. This point of view stoked her interest and she would check in with me periodically throughout the rest of the evening to see if I had been convinced by anything I had witnessed.

Sachs Bridge is a one hundred foot lattice truss structure straight out of a Sleepy Hallow nightmare. You can almost hear the slowly swinging nooses stretching down from the dark rafters, tickling the back of your neck as you walk through the dusty tunnel. Our investigation here lasted through dusk and was accompanied by several ghost stories from Miss Betty. The anecdotes ranged from various atrocities taking place around the bridge during the battle to local children seeing spirits marching up the nearby road just a few months prior.

We were also encouraged to take pictures throughout the evening because it was near these spiritual epicenters where floating orbs and spectral manifestations would miraculously appear in photos even when they may not have been visible in person. I took lots of photos with my Canon XT. I never captured any of these orbs.

Zach Bagans visits Gettysburg.
Via Travel Channel.

We made two more stops during the tour: a visit to a forsaken gazebo near a haunted inn (which was possibly built next to a mass grave) and a field next to the public school where several Confederate soldiers from Louisiana had been massacred. The eeriness of the locations, the sweet but pungent odor of the ripe Pennsylvania grass, and the haunting tales weaved by the charismatic Miss Betty provided for an unbelievably entertaining and inexpensive evening ($15 after the Gaslight Inn discount).  If you go on your own you may even be able to ride along with Miss Betty as she drives from site to site. This woman knows her history of the battlefields, not just the ghost stories but the traditional textbook stuff as well. There also seems to be some limitations enforced by park rangers with regards to people being out and about the battlefields after dark, and the official ghost tours are a great way to be driving through the park at night without being harassed by security.

Ghosts or not, the appearance on the stone faces of the life size statues that stand like sentinels around the park is enough to make your throat go dry. Moving shadows caused by passing low beam headlights gliding across their cheeks and noses like spirit dust as their cold eyes stare off into the eternal beyond, this alone is worth the price of admission. Its wonderful theater and you know for a fact that all those years ago hundreds of men may have been blown to bits right where you are now standing, some vaporized in a red mist of sanguinary termination thanks to cannon fire. Such thoughts do make one pay close attention to their immediate surroundings.

Maj. Gen. Meade Monument

Prior to going to Gettysburg I felt I had a better than average understanding of the battle itself.  I had read several focused works on the encounter as well as the entire trilogy of Shelby Foote’s Civil War including a recent re-reading of his Stars in Their Courses. I had watched the “Gettysburg” episode of the Ken Burns documentary four times, and I had even viewed the Ronald Maxwell film Gettysburg made in 1993 starring Tom Berenger and Martin Sheen.

For those two days I was in Gettysburg prior to taking the ghost tour I covered as much of that field as a person possibly could with self-guided tours, official bus tours, hiking on foot, and driving my grumbling Challenger all around the park. I felt I had a firm grasp of the traditional image and understanding of those three brutal days in July. But it was those brief treks on my final night there, roving back and forth from one haunted spot in the park to another with a full moon overhead, those empty stone eyes watching our every move that provided a different perspective of the area that I wasn’t quite anticipating.

Miss Betty

Standing in silence in that open expanse, the stars beaming down, the solitude of the moment. If you let your mind wander you can imagine the worried parents of these young men waiting back home for hopeful news. Wherever home might be: Tennessee, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia. Waiting for word that their son is still alive, that the war is over, that life will once again go on as it had before. But that word won’t come. Their son will die, painfully, in agony, along with thousands of others in the hope that this nation would stay united. Standing there under the stars with my mind flying through these images like a scene from Siddhartha, it is only then that the battle becomes real to me and not just words in a book or actors on a screen.

“Have I convinced you at all in the existence of spirits, Jason?” Miss Betty asked as we were about to part our ways at the end of the evening.  I told her no, unfortunately, but I still had a hell of a time and that I would highly recommend her to anyone I knew who would be visiting the park. Sometimes an unconventional method of viewing something that we thought we already understood can reveal something new. They might not quite be ghosts, but subtle details and different insights that we never knew existed can suddenly appear.