Real Ghost Stories Chapter 17 - Ghosts of Gettsyburg, a supernatural fanfic

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Real Ghost Stories

Chapter 17

Ghosts of Gettysburg

At dawn on July 1st 1863 at the little crossroads town of Gettysburg Pennsylvania a Confederate army advance guard unexpectedly came upon a force of Union infantry. From this accidental encounter the Battle of Gettysburg grew into the single bloodiest battle of American military history.

"Sam, why are we here?" Dean asked, leaning on the Sachs Bridge railing and gazing over the fields.

Sam pulled a map out of his jacket pocket. "This Bridge is supposed to be haunted by the ghostly sounds of battle. Lights hover over these fields at night and the sounds of men talking and horses neighing…."

"No, Sam." Dean interrupted. "Why are we here in Gettysburg?"

"I thought it would be educational." Sam shrugged.

"I don't need to go back to school on ghosts." Dean snapped. "I know ghosts. What the hell, man?"

"No, that's not what I mean." Sam gazed over the fields. "We burn some bones, we remove a poltergeist, we chase a spirit and we feel pretty good. We've won. It's like we think we can win every time. Occasionally we need to be reminded not to be so sure of ourselves."

"By the evening of the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, fifty one thousand men were lost; dead, wounded or captured. The North suffered twenty two thousand casualties; the South lost twenty eight thousand more.

"The bodies lay everywhere, rotting in the Pennsylvania summer heat. To this day people claim to be able to smell death in the streets of Gettysburg. There is also the ghostly odor of the peppermint and vanilla the ladies of Gettysburg poured in their handkerchiefs to mask the smell of the corpses."

"There are no individual famous ghosts in Gettysburg. The ghosts come in battalions, in battle maneuvers. There is not just one ghost, there are thousands. All are lost, mostly young and far from home. They have no idea that the battle has been over for more than a hundred years. They still charge. Their commanders still drive them forward with cries of "for Virginia", "for Texas" and threaten the hesitant with slashing swords."

"Jesus Sam," Dean breathed.

"This battle broke the back of the Confederacy." Sam went on, his eyes closed, remembering clearly pictures he had seen in the history books. "Never again in the course of the War would Lee's army get so far north. The wagon train of the Confederate wounded retreating back into West Virginia was seventeen miles long. Most would die or be horribly crippled. Surgeons only treatment for mangled limbs was amputation just ahead of the gangrene." Sam crushed his little tourist map in one huge hand.

"If we stand here into the night we are likely to see them replay their deaths. They die over and over, night after night, charging through open fields in the face of artillery; falling ten at a time from a single shell. Pickett's charge started with twelve thousand men. By the time retreat was called five thousand laid dead in the field. I don't think that we can offer them any peace. Hopefully with the passing of time they will fade away on their own."

"Thanks for the pep-talk, Sam." Dean huffed.

"I think that we do what we can to bring peace to the lost." Sam continued. "Faced with something of this magnitude we should be reminded that we fight the good fight. Even if it is only one at a time we do manage to send some on their way."

Dean heaved himself off the railing. "Maybe we should get back to work, then Sam. There may only be two of us but we do what we can for both the living and the dead. We have work to do."

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This chapter is very short but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here are 272 words written by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Yes, it is short. I only took him two minutes to say:

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

November 19, 1863.

This work was published before January 1, 1923, and is in the public domain because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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Reference material used to write this chapter:

The Gettysburg Address is from the Wikipedia web site

Ghost stories are from the web site "American Hauntings" The Gettysburg Battlefield