- Haunted Chickamauga Battlefield - Public Domain
The Cherokee word, Chickamauga, means River of Death. The creek was named long before the arrival of European settlers.
Years later, after the Cherokee were expelled from their homeland and endured the Trail of Tears, the Battle of Chickamauga claimed the lives of 16,170 Union and 18,454 Confederate soldiers, a total of 34,624 casualties. Within hours of the last shots being fired, women searched the battlefield for their men by lantern light. Phantom lights and the voices of the women linger….
Chickamauga’s Lady in White
This legendary ghost has been seen many times by numerous people roaming on the grounds. According to legend, she was the wife or lover of a soldier who was killed in battle. Her ghost is clad in a white wedding gown as she searches the battlefield for her loved one.
Re-enactors’ Ghostly Experience at Chickamauga
David Lester and some of his fellow Civil War reenactors were camping at the battlefield when they were performing in an event that shows visitors how soldiers lived during the war. Several of his friends went to a neighboring camp to meet fellow reenactors. They talked for several hours around a campfire.
The next morning, the group went back to the neighboring camp to visit the reenactors, but they were gone. There was no sign of a campfire or any evidence that humans had been there.
Incident at Chickamauga’s Wilder Tower
The eighty-five foot stone tower was built in Civil War hero Union Army Lieutenant Colonel John T. Wilder’s memory. In 1970, after dark. a young man decided to climb the inside stairs of the locked tower. He climbed up the lightning rod that was attached to the tower, then entered a gun slot that’s about fourteen feet above ground.
Once inside, he ran to the top of the tower and called out to his friends. Suddenly, they him scream, then saw their friend jump out of a twenty-five foot high window. He survived, but was paralyzed and could never tell people what scared him.
Chickamauga’s Legendary Old Green Eyes
According to one legend, Old Green Eyes was a Confederate soldier whose head was blown off of his body during the battle. When he was buried, only his head was found. His ghost roams the battlefield at night, moaning and searching for his body. People have seen green, glowing eyes approach them during the night and have heard his moanings.
The other legend claims Old Green Eyes was at Chickamauga long before the Civil War when the land was the Cherokee Nation’s. The entity is a humanoid creature with glowing green eyes, waist-length hair, huge misshapen jaws and fangs.
Some accounts state the monster was seen moving among the dead after the Battle of Chickamauga ended. Staff and visitors have reported seeing it, mostly on Snodgrass Hill. In the early 1970s, there were two different automobile accidents near the same place when the drivers saw green glowing eyes.
Ranger Encounters Chickamauga’s Old Green Eyes
Park ranger and historian Edward Tinney saw Old Green Eyes one night. He felt a strange chill, unlike any one he had ever experienced. A moment later, he saw something emerge from the darkness.
The entity's hair was long and the teeth resembled fangs. It wore a dark cape that appeared to flutter in a breeze, although the air was still. The glowing eyes were greenish-orange. When the headlights of an approaching car appeared, the entity vanished.
Mysteries of Chickamauga
It’s not surprising that the battlefield is haunted. With the exception of the ghostly Civil War reenactors, the phenomena are classified as a haunting, energy imprinted on time and space without intelligence.
The reenactors are apparitions, intelligent ghosts. According to survival theory, apparitions are the part of a person that survives death of the physical body.
What scared the young man in Wilder Tower? Was it a ghost, hallucination, Old Green Eyes or something else?
What is Old Green Eyes? It’s possible that there are two green-eyed creatures which would account for the different legends. The Confederate soldier’s wraith would be a haunting. Extensive research did not produce any Cherokee legend about Green Eyes, although many sources referred to one. Currently, Green Eyes is a mysterious entity that science cannot explain.
Articles Related to Haunted Chickamauga Battlefield
People who enjoyed this article might like Whose Ghosts are Haunting the Alamo, along with Haunters of the Little Big Horn and Ghosts of Fort Mifflin.
Source:
Haunted Houses, Richard Winer and Nancy Osborn, (A Bantam Book, 1979).
Jill Stefko - I'd rather deal with the paranormal than human abnormal - having dealt extensively with both.
