The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878: A Case Study

                                                        Yellow Fever Hospital

The worst outbreak of Yellow Fever in American history hit the Mississippi River Valley in 1878.  The region recorded 120,000 cases and some 20,000 deaths.  Here is how it looked to the people on the ground:

In August 1878, news reached Holly Springs, Mississippi that the neighboring town of Grenada was in the grip of the yellow fever epidemic that was sweeping the South.  The fever had stricken some one hundred and thirty one Southern towns that summer. 

Yellow fever is an acute infectious disease of tropical and sub-tropical regions, which is capable of invading the temperate zones as devastating epidemics during warm seasons.  A typical attack of yellow fever has a sudden onset with headache, backache, fever prostration and congestion of the face during the first few days.  Later there may be vomiting of black blood, bleeding gums, kidney disease and jaundice.  Mortality varies greatly, sometimes running to over fifty percent.

Yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of certain types of mosquitos, a fact unknown in 1878.  Ignorance bred fear, and those who could fled any district touched by the fever. 

On August 7, the mayor and council of Holly Springs set up a Board of Health which advised, that to protect the town, a rigid quarantine should be imposed.  The mayor and council rejected the resolution on the grounds that it would be cruel to turn away refugees fleeing from the disease.

Men, women and children, from Grenada began arriving in Holly Springs on August 17.  A Mr. Downs became ill on the day of his arrival.  As illness overtook one after another of the refugees, fear spread through the town.  In the early hours of Sunday, August 25, Mr. Downs died.  Hoping to keep Downs’ death a secret from the public, his body was removed through a back window and buried in the darkness. 

More and more of the refugees began to die, and cases of “bilious fever” developed among local citizens.  The diagnosis changed as the number of cases grew.  On September 4, yellow fever was declared “epidemic” in Holly Springs.  Streets to the train depot were jammed with townspeople trying to refugee north.  Colonel H.W. Walters took charge of relief measures.  

By September 6, Father Anacietus Oberti and twelve nuns from Bethlehem Academy had set up a makeshift hospital. There was little, in fact, that could be done to treat the yellow fever other than to provide quiet surroundings, water, and to withhold food during the height of the disease.  Six of the nuns quickly became ill and died, as did Father Oberti.  Doctors, nurses and other volunteers from New Orleans arrived in response to an appeal for help, but the death list continued to mount.

The yellow fever spread across the entire town and to nearby farms.  W. J. L. Holland, who became Chairman of the Relief Committee after Colonel Walters died from the fever,  wired the press, “The situation is worse.  It looks like every man must go down.  Only ten out of the first hundred cases live.  Two days ago, thirty news cases and ten deaths; yesterday, twenty three new cases and eleven deaths.  After having recruited five times, the Relief Committee yesterday numbered one.  Five hundred persons now lie stricken.  We pray for friends and frost.  We have a safe full of keys and valuables belonging to families that have all been swept away.”

On October 19, 1878, Mr. Holland issued the following message to the press, “Today there have been six new cases and one death.  Your correspondent happens to be one of the new cases, after having struggled with ‘Yellow Jack’ from the beginning of the epidemic, he desires, through you, in the name of this people, to express their lasting gratitude to our friends in every part of the Union who have generously contributed to us in so many ways.”

October 25, 1878.  Funeral notice: “W. J. L. Holland, late Chairman of the Relief Committee, departed this life at 2:30 A.M. aged thirty six.

November 1, 1878: “Four new cases, no deaths.  Heavy frost last night and business houses open.”

Out of a population of 3,500, some fourteen hundred citizens of Holly Springs were stricken with the fever.  Of these, three hundred and four died.

An effective vaccine for Yellow Fever was not developed for another sixty years.

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America

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Northern Virginia’s "George Washington Air Junction"

                                                             Dirigible


     Under the heading, “What might have been”, it should be noted that one bold entrepreneur once had the dream of bringing the largest airport in the world to Northern Virginia.  In the late 1920s, Henry Woodhouse purchased 1,500 acres in Fairfax County’s Hybla Valley, with the dream of converting the existing dairy farms into the "George Washington Air Junction".  Woodhouse was convinced that Zeppelins were the future of aviation, and conceived of gigantic runways and mooring fields to accommodate trans-Atlantic Zeppelin flights.  An article in the March 3, 1938 issue of the Herald Times proclaimed, “Hybla Valley, flat as a table and 3,800 acres in extent, lies 3 miles south of Alexandria, flanked by U.S. Highway #1.  On it could be located the largest runways in the world, and it could be converted into the largest airport in the world.”  Nothing came of the plan, and not a single aircraft ever operated from the site.  Woodhouse succumbed to his creditors, and the land was eventually purchased by the government in 1941 for use by the military.  In 1975 the land was sold to Fairfax County for $1 to be used "exclusively for public park or public recreation purposes in perpetuity”.  The land is now known as Huntley Meadows Park.

Hidden History of Northern Virginia

Arlington House and Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington House

     George Washington Parke Custis, aged three, inherited eleven hundred acres of land overlooking the Potomac River, when his father, the stepson of General George Washington, died in 1781.  Young “Wash” and his sister “Nelly” were raised at Mount Vernon by George and Martha Washington.  Upon reaching legal age in 1802, the young man began building a lavish house on a high hill overlooking the Potomac which was to be not only his house but a living memorial to George Washington (who died in 1799).  Originally the name “Mount Washington” was considered for the house, but in the end it was named after the Custis family estate in the Virginia tidewater area and became known as “Arlington House”.  The house took sixteen years to complete.

    Custis married and had one daughter, Mary.  Mary Custis, one of wealthiest heiresses in Virginia, fell in love with a penniless soldier, Robert E. Lee.  Although Lee came from a prominent family, at the time of his birth there was no family fortune left.  Lee had only his army pay and his person to offer a bride.  One afternoon, while taking a break from reading aloud from a novel by Sir Walter Scott, Lee proposed to Mary.  Mary’s father reluctantly agreed to the marriage.


     In 1857 Custis died.  His will allowed Mary to live in and control Arlington House for the duration of her life, at which point the house would pass to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.  Mary and Robert E. Lee lived in Arlington House until 1861 when Virginia seceded from the Union and Lee went south to join the Confederate army.


     Union troops moved into Virginia in May, 1861, immediately taking up positions around Arlington House.  Two forts were built on the estate including Fort Whipple (now Fort Myer) and Fort McPherson.  The property was confiscated by the federal government when property taxes were not paid in person by Mrs. Lee. The property was offered for public sale Jan. 11, 1864, and was purchased by a tax commissioner for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes." More than 1,100 freed slaves were given land around the house, where they farmed and lived during and after the Civil War.
                                                        

     At this point Brigadier General Montgomery C. Meigs, commander of the garrison at Arlington House (and Quartermaster General of the Union Army) enters the picture.  Meigs and Lee had served together many years earlier as military engineers on the Mississippi River.  Lee was a 1^st Lieutenant and Meigs his subordinate, a 2^nd Lieutenant.  Did Meigs bear Lee a personal grudge?  Some historians think so, or perhaps he was just embittered by the war itself, or by Lee’s defection from the Union army.  In any event, tasked with finding additional burial grounds for battle casualties, on June 15, 1864, Meigs wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that “the grounds about the mansion are admirably suited to such a use.” Meigs himself reported his “grim satisfaction” of ordering twenty six Union dead to be buried near Mrs. Lee’s rose garden in June, 1864.  Meigs had graves dug right up to the entrance to the house.  The entire Rose Garden was dug up and the remains of some 1800 soldiers recovered from the Manassas Battlefields buried there in a huge burial vault.  Such an unusual positioning of graves was malicious.  Meigs intention appeared to be to prevent the Lee family from ever again inhabiting the house.  By the time the Civil War ended, more than 16,000 Union soldiers were buried on the grounds of the estate.  Ironically, Meig’s own son, John,  was killed in October 1864 and sent to Arlington Cemetery for burial.  

                                                 The Grave of John Meigs        



     Neither Robert E. Lee nor his wife ever set foot in Arlington House again. General Lee died in 1870.  Mary Custis Lee visited the grounds shortly before her death in 1873, but was overcome by emotion and unable to go inside the house.  After the death of his parents, George Washington Custis Lee claimed that the house and land had been illegally confiscated and that, according to his grandfather's will, he was the legal owner. In December 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, returned the property to George Washington Custis Lee, stating that it had been confiscated without due process.

Would the dead have to be transferred to a new site?  General Lee's son diffused the crisis by selling the house and land to the government for its’ fair market value.

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

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Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are mysterious, forbidding, and dangerous.  The Superstitions are said to have claimed over five hundred lives.  What were these people looking for?  Is it possible that these mountains hide a vast treasure?  Is it possible that UFOs land here?  Is it possible that in these mountains there is a door leading to the great underground city of the Lizard Men?  Join us as we recount a fictional story of the Superstitions and then look at the real history of the legends that haunt these mountains in our new book:  Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains.

War Comes to Manassas Virginia (1861)

 

The Grave of Judith Henry

     On July 21, 1861 the eighty four year old, invalid Judith Henry lay in her bed, as the battle began around Pittsylvania, her childhood home.  Shells from Union artillery began to fall around the widow’s house, “Spring Hill”.  Mrs. Henry’s two sons, shocked to find Union troops on their doorstep, decided to move their mother to safety.  Mrs. Henry was unwilling to leave, but after several shells struck the house, the terrified woman gave in.  The two sons placed the old woman on a mattress and carried her out of the house, intending to carry her to the Reverend Compton’s house, about a mile away.  The small party was soon caught in the open in the midst of a furious battle.  Terrified and hysterical, the old woman begged to be taken back to her own home.  The three Henrys returned to the house, and Mrs. Henry was returned to bed.  She was only there a short time before a shell burst in the room where she lay.  She was struck by seven shell fragments and lived for several agonizing hours, dying about nightfall.  Rosa Stokes, a young slave who had been caring for the old lady was wounded by the same shell that killed Mrs. Henry.

     At nearby Folly Castle plantation, Betty Leachman put her five small children under a large sideboard where they stayed huddled all day.  The house was struck by cannon balls several times.  Early on the morning after the battle, young Mr. Henry made his was to Folly Castle and asked Betty and her sister-in-law to return with him, to prepare Mrs. Henry’s body for burial.  They went with him, cutting across fields strewn with dead soldiers.

Portici 

     The Lewis family of  “Portici” found themselves at the center of the battle.  Confederate officers notified the Lewis family that a battle was imminent and that their house would be exposed to fire.  They evacuated, taking everything they could with them, but left valuable and heavy furniture behind.  The furniture was stored in a small room in an angle of the house, and the room securely nailed shut.  The only shot that struck the house during the battle struck this room and destroyed all of the furniture.  Furniture was a trifling matter however.  Fannie Lewis was in her ninth month of pregnancy and went into labor as they began to evacuate the house.  Servants found a nearby ravine and dug a small earthen hollow into the bank.  They covered this with greens.  It was here that Fannie Lewis delivered her first baby, John Beauregard Lewis.

     After the battle, Portici became a grisly field hospital.  The wounded, dead, and dying covered every floor in the house.  There were two piles of amputated legs, feet, hands and arms, all thrown together.  At a distance they looked like piles of corn.  Many of the feet still had boots on them.  Wounded men lay on tables while surgeons carved away like farmers in butchering season.  

The Hard Hand of War

     After an interlude of little over a year, the horrors of war again returned to Manassas in August, 1862 with the Second Battle of Manassas.  After the second battle, Manassas faded into obscurity.  Times were now very hard for the civilian population.  There were no real horses left, only those that were battle scarred, lame or blind.  Women were forced to run farms with the help only of old people and children.  To make matters worse, the farmers ran short of tools and implements, for it was impossible to replace the metal parts of plows, wagons, hoes and scythes.

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Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America

Norton I, Emperor of the United States (1859)

Emperor Norton I

Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880), was a San Francisco eccentric who proclaimed himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States” in 1859.  The city embraced the eccentric, and he was treated with respect.  Merchants honored currency he issued when he made purchases.  Merchants also capitalized on his notoriety by selling souvenirs bearing his name.

Citizens of San Francisco celebrated his imperial presence, and some of his proclamations, such as his order that the United States Congress be dissolved, were popular with many.

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are mysterious, forbidding, and dangerous.  The Superstitions are said to have claimed over five hundred lives.  What were these people looking for?  Is it possible that these mountains hide a vast treasure?  Is it possible that UFOs land here?  Is it possible that in these mountains there is a door leading to the great underground city of the Lizard Men?  Join us as we explore the history of the:  Legends of the Superstition Mountains.

There are Monsters in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains

The Superstition Mountains

In the 1920s, two prospectors hiked into the area of Pope Springs to search for gold.  In the middle of the night, a huge beast killed and carried off their four hundred and fifty pound burro.  The prospectors described the beast as a, “large smelly, strange animal with a matted, coarse and tangled hair coat.”  The creature walked on its hind legs and stood at least eight to ten feet in height.  The prospectors claimed that the creature “smelled like feces and urine” and was agile on its hindquarters.  They testified that the creature weighed four to eight hundred pounds.

The creature described by the two prospectors closely matches descriptions of the Mogollon Monster, Arizona’s answer to Big Foot.  The Mogollon Monster is described as being over seven feet tall, with inhuman strength, and large, wild and red eyes. Its body is covered with long black or reddish brown hair, and it emits a strong odor described as that of “dead fish.”  The creature is territorial, and sometimes very violent. The creature is also said to decapitate deer and other wildlife prior to consuming them.

The earliest known documented sighting of the Mogollon Monster was reported in a 1903 edition of The Arizona Republican, in which I.W. Stevens described a creature seen near the Grand Canyon as having, “long white hair and matted beard that reached to his knees. It wore no clothing, and upon his talon-like fingers were claws at least two inches long.” Upon further inspection he noted, “a coat of gray hair nearly covered his body, with here and there a spot of dirty skin showing.” He later stated that after he discovered the creature drinking the blood of two cougars, it threatened him with a club, and “screamed the wildest, most unearthly screech”. 

An account from the mid-1940s by Don Davis says, “The creature was huge. Its eyes were deep set and hard to see, but they seemed expressionless. His face seemed pretty much devoid of hair, but there seemed to be hair along the sides of his face. His chest, shoulders, and arms were massive, especially the upper arms; easily upwards of 6 inches in diameter, perhaps much, much more. I could see he was pretty hairy, but didn't observe really how thick the body hair was. The face/head was very square; square sides and squared up chin, like a box.”

The creature was spotted a number of times between 1982 and 2004 near the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. 

The Phoenix Gazette on Monday, May 11, 1981, announced, “Explorer Plans Capture of Big Foot.” C. Thomas Biscardi was making an exploratory trip to the Superstition Mountains of Arizona to search for Big Foot.  His search turned up nothing conclusive.

In 2007, there was a Big Foot sighting in the Superstition Wilderness Area.  A large upright animal spooked a rider and pack horse near the head waters of Rough Canyon along the northern edge of White Mountain.

Another set of monsters supposedly roaming the Superstitions are the lizard men or reptilians.  Are these creatures coming from UFOs or are they homegrown?  No one can quite decide. Indian legends speak of reptilian beings inhabiting the earth when their ancestors roamed the west. There are numerous Native American petroglyphs throughout the region that depict what appear to be upright, bipedal lizards.

The earliest documented sighting occurred on October 28th, 1878.  On that date, the Louisville Courier-Journal ran a story about a scaly “Wild Man of the Woods” that had been killed and was on display for public view. The creature was described as being about six feet tall, with large eyes, and covered with scales. The strange being was viewed by hundreds of the curious. 

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are mysterious, forbidding, and dangerous.  The Superstitions are said to have claimed over five hundred lives.  What were these people looking for?  Is it possible that these mountains hide a vast treasure?  Is it possible that UFOs land here?  Is it possible that in these mountains there is a door leading to the great underground city of the Lizard Men?  Join us as we recount a fictional story of the Superstitions and then look at the real history of the legends that haunt these mountains in our new book:  Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains.

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I Vow to Thee

Inspirational words in the time of Coronavirus:

I vow to thee my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love.
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best.
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country I've heard of long ago,

Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know.
We may not count her armies, we may not see her king,
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering.
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.

I Vow to Thee, My Country

Anesthesia in the American Civil War

A Civil War Operation

In 1846, Dr. William T.G. Morton, a dentist, introduced the first anesthetic ether.  Ether was first administered by rubbing it on the inside of the patient’s mouth or putting it on a cloth and having the patient breathe through it.  Morton found that ether was more effective when it was inhaled and went on to develop an inhaler.

Morton's first successful public demonstration of ether as an anesthetic was such a historic and widely publicized event that many consider him to be the "inventor and revealer" of anesthesia. However, Morton's work was preceded by that of Georgia surgeon Crawford Williamson Long, who employed ether as an anesthetic on March 30, 1842. Long demonstrated its use to physicians in Georgia, but did not publish his findings until 1849.

Between 1849 and the start of the Civil War, thirty different types of inhalers had been developed for ether and chloroform, another form of anesthesia. One of the thirty inhalers being the one Morton developed and the one he used during his 1846 demonstration. 

Anesthesia had to quickly adapt to the demands of the Civil War.  The most common battlefield operation was the amputation of arms and legs.  Amputation was a quick and reliable answer to the severe wounds created by the .58 caliber Minie ball used during the war.  This heavy bullet of soft lead caused large gaping wounds that filled with dirt and pieces of clothing.  It shattered bone.  Surgeons usually chose amputation over trying to save the limb.  Heavy doses of chloroform were administered and some seventy five percent of all soldiers survived the operation.  The poet Walt Whitman, who served as a nurse in the Union army at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, recounted seeing, “a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc, a full load for a one-horse cart.” 

Anesthesia was administered using cloth instead of inhalers because of the lack of resources and the need for speedy operations. However, fortunately for the wounded soldiers, 95% of the time anesthesia was used in Civil War surgeries although in small quantities, just enough to get the job done. It was quite rare when anesthesia was not used. Morton himself became a military anesthesiologist at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, attending many patients and sharing his knowledge with other surgeons.   A Civil War surgeon remembered many years later, “How much have the horrors of the battlefield and the hospital been diminished by the use of ether and chloroform!”

Women Doctors in the Civil War

A quick look at women doctors and medicine in the Civil War for the general reader. Technologically, the American Civil War was the first “modern” war, but medically it still had its roots in the Middle Ages. In both the North and the South, thousands of women served as nurses to help wounded and suffering soldiers and civilians. A few women served as doctors, a remarkable feat in an era when sex discrimination prevented women from pursuing medical education, and those few who did were often obstructed by their male colleagues at every turn.

The Great Northern Rebellion of 1860 (alternate history)

In 1860, disgruntled secessionists in the deep North rebel against the central government and plunge America into Civil War. Will the Kingdom survive? The land will run red with blood before peace comes again.

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George Armstrong Custer as a Sioux Chief

Tableaux vivants were popular forms of entertainment on the American frontier.  In a tableau, participants make still images with their bodies to represent a scene. Because there is no movement, or speaking, a tableau is easier to produce than a play, yet can easily lead into extended drama activities with one tableau succeeding another to tell a story.  Tableaux continue today in the form of “living statues”, where street performers often appear in costume as historical characters.

In the summer of 1875, George Armstrong Custer appeared in a series of tableaux with Miss Agnes Bates of Monroe Michigan depicting a Sioux Chief and his bride.  Miss Bates was a guest of Mrs. Elizabeth Custer at Fort Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota in 1874-1875.

In 1873, the 7th Cavalry had moved into the fort to ensure the expansion of the Northern Pacific Railway.  The first post commander of the expanded fort was Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, who held the position until his death in 1876.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Since his death along the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River, in Montana, on June 25, 1876, over five hundred books have been written about the life and career of George Armstrong Custer. Views of Custer have changed over succeeding generations. Custer has been portrayed as a callous egotist, a bungling egomaniac, a genocidal war criminal, and the puppet of faceless forces. For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

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Please Mr. Custer, I don't Want to Go

“Mr. Custer” was a chart busting song in 1960.  Written by Al De Lory, Fred Darian, and Joseph Van Winkle, and sung by Larry Verne this historical novelty song became the number one song in America on October 10, 1960.  It stayed at the top of the charts for an impressive one week.  This soldier’s song about the Battle of the Little Bighorn also reached the top spot on the Canadian charts on September 12, 1960.

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Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

The Strange Case of Adolph Ruth and the Lost Dutchman’s Mine

                                   The Superstition Mountains of Arizona

The year 1931 saw one of the best known, best publicized and most investigated deaths in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, the death of Adolph Ruth.  Adolph Ruth was a sixty-seven year old retired government employee and amateur treasure hunter. Adolph Ruth’s story began not in the Superstition Mountains but in Mexico.  His son Erwin, a veterinarian, who was a cattle inspector in Mexico, helped eradicate the cattle tick problem plaguing Mexican ranchers.  He helped the Gonzales family who were so grateful that they gave Erwin Ruth some old mining maps.  These maps had been in the Gonzales family for many generations, and showed the exact location of a number of gold mines in the United States.  Erwin who had no interest in the maps passed them along to his father Adolph.  One of these maps showed the location of an old mine in the Superstition Mountains.

Adolph Ruth was familiar with the hardships of prospecting in the desert.  He had previously looked for the Lost Peg Leg Mine in California.  In 1931, he came to the Superstition Mountains to look for what he believed to be the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.  It should be noted that Ruth was talkative.  He showed his map to any and all who were interested, and talked authoritatively about how HE was about to find the Dutchman’s Mine.  Ruth hired guides and horses and was packed into the mountains around June 14 by two cowboys.  He set up camp at Willow Springs in West Boulder Canyon.  This was the last time anyone saw Adolph Ruth alive. 

After six days, the cowboys’ boss, Tex Barkley, went looking for Ruth. Upon arriving at Ruth’s camp, Tex Barkley could tell that no one had been there for at least a day and reported Ruth missing.  A reward was posted and search parties combed the mountain fruitlessly for the next month.

In December, a skull with two holes in it was discovered near the three Red Hills by an archaeological expedition. It was the skull of Adolph Ruth.  The story of Ruth’s death was headlined by the Arizona Republic and went national.  Sensational stories alleged that Ruth had been killed for his map. Ruth’s son, Erwin, was convinced that his father had been murdered.

The rest of Ruth’s body was found the next month, in a small tributary on the east slope of Black Top Mesa. Ruth’s treasure notebook was also found at his original campsite.  In this notebook, were written these cryptic words, “Veni, Vedi, Vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”).  Did Adolph Ruth discover the Dutchman’s mine?

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Desert Gifts

Are Civil War Battlefields Haunted?

There is a huge body of circumstantial evidence of battlefield hauntings stretching back to ancient times, when ghosts were seen and heard to engage on the plains of Marathon after the battle (the Battle of Marathon was fought in 490 BC).  In the 1930s visitors to this region of Greece were still claiming to have heard the sound of metal clashes and screams coming from the battlefield. In Vita Isiclori, Damascius tells us that after a battle outside the walls of Rome against the Huns in 452AD, ghosts were reported to still be fighting for three days and nights after the battle, the clash of their weapons being heard all over the city.  The first major battle of the English Civil War (1662) produced a well-documented case of ghost armies fighting as reliable witnesses reported the phantom soldiers engaged in battle.  King Charles I was so intrigued by the stories that he sent a Royal Commission to investigate.  The trusted officers of the Commission reported back that they too had seen the ghastly spectacle and even recognized the ghosts of some of their fallen friends.  The phenomenon continued for some time, gradually lessening over time, until now there are only occasional reports of people hearing the sounds of battle at Edgehill.

How do we account for such stories?  The two most often reported types of hauntings are categorized as residual hauntings and intelligent hauntings.  Residual hauntings are the most common form of hauntings and may eventually be found to be natural phenomena.  A residual haunting is similar to a DVD that is played over and over again.  In a residual American Civil War battlefield haunting, for example, the sights, sounds, and even smells of battle are continually replayed and are always the same. Apparitions may be seen, but they will not notice living people around them.  The theory here is that energy created by the strong emotions created in battle imprints itself on a physical place and that an individual sensitive enough to pick up this embedded energy sees and hears ghostly events while those who lack such sensitivity do not. Since current science has no instruments to measure such embedded energy or test for individual psychic sensitivity to that energy, such hauntings are dismissed out of hand, even though they may actually exist.  

Paula Ann Kirby, author of  A Yankee Roams at Dusk, describes two types of  hauntings that may be occurring at Manassas, (1) residual hauntings, which are a manifestation of stored up energy replaying endlessly like an old movie, and (2) intelligent hauntings, which are rare instances in which ghosts try to interact with the living.

Civil War Humor 1861-1865

A brief but fascinating look at humor in the Civil War including: (1) Stories Around the Campfire, (2) Parody, (3) the Irish, (4) Humorous Incidents, (5) Civil War Humorists, and (6) Lincoln.

Women Doctors in the Civil War

A quick look at women doctors and medicine in the Civil War for the general reader.