Why I am such a scaredy cat now...

As requested, here is my account of the experience I had in November while visiting the Chickamauga National Battlefield near the Georgia/Tennessee State Line. I realize that it may sound made-up, but you asked for it! And so here it is…my true account of that night.

I was so freaked out by this that I wrote this all down in a notebook when I got home.

On Sunday, November 6, 2005, I went along with a couple of friends of mine T. and C. to the said battlefield. We arrived around 4:00 that afternoon to scope out our area. I was familiar with the battlefield because being the history nut that I am, I had already been there, but this would be my first “ghost” hunt and my first post-dark experience here. Since it is a National Park, all roads but the main highway would be closed at dark. We had to find a way to get to the reportedly most active part of the battlefield. Since I am usually the “map person” on all my trips, I took on this assignment and found a hiking trail that would still have accessible parking (since it was along one of the highways) that would lead us to Snodgrass Hill, the site of the battle’s climax. (Just a quick tidbit of info…The battle of Chickamauga Creek is one of the bloodiest in all of the Civil War. You just don’t hear as much about it since it occurred in the fall of 1863, a few months after the Battle of Gettysburg, which, along with the fall of Vicksburg immediately afterward, is considered the turning point of the war and so the Battle of Chickamauga Creek is considered less significant in the whole scheme of things.)

Right before dark my two friends and I parked our vehicle and started off on the trail through the woods to Snodgrass Hill. As we trudged along in the growing darkness, the thought did occur to me that it might be a wee bit freaky to hike back in the complete darkness of the woods of a grisly battle site. But remember, I was still fearless at this point and giggled it off as nothing. We made it to our destination of the open field and small hill right before dark. We sat along a log in the woods, hiding out and waiting for the cover of complete darkness and the slimmer chance of being busted by a park ranger.

As we waited in the ever-darkening woods, all three of us heard a faint “tink-tink-tink” sound a few yards away that sounded like metal hitting metal. It was odd, but I wasn’t freaked out at all. I figured there was some logical explanation. A few minutes later C. reported that he heard what he believed to sound like a horse’s breathing. I asked him from which direction he heard it and he pointed behind him. As I looked in his general pointing direction I saw this whitish/gray movement through the trees. That was even more odd and I felt my heart skip a beat for moment, but then it passed and I was still not freaked out.

Complete darkness, excluding the moonlight, took the battlefield and we came out of hiding and began walking along the edge of the field, at the bottom of the hill, and by the woods. Immediately the top of the hill was covered in a thick fog. I thought it was a little weird because normally the bottom of a hill would grow foggy first, not the top. This “fog” never “rolled in” either. It was simply not there one moment and there the next moment I looked. As I looked at the top of the hill, I saw glowing, moving shapes around the monuments, cannons, and the cabin that sat atop the Snodgrass Hill. I blinked hard, looked away and then looked back, believing that my eyes must have been playing tricks on me somehow. But each time I looked, I saw the same thing. And then T. asked me if I was seeing the moving, glowing shapes. I stopped looking there for a while, feeling a tiny bit freaked by this point.

Nothing else caught my eye in the open field or in the nearby woods so I looked back to the top of hill. Now in addition to the occasional glowing shapes, I was also seeing dark shapes/shadows moving between the monuments. These dark shapes begin to scare me and I am now becoming increasingly freaked. These dark shapes scared me because they were eerily about human height and they were moving in groups of two or more shapes together. I watched them hoping to either convince myself that my eyes are being tricksy or that I am really seeing something unexplainable. T. was also doing the same and every now and then she would make a statement like, “Did you just see that? That dark figure moved to the left and then this white mist floated over it?” Every description she made was what I was seeing also.

We walked through some cold spots. I had heard that sometimes spirits manifest themselves as cold spots. When I say these spots were cold, I mean they were frigid. (When we left later that night, the bank in town read that it was 61 degrees.) When I stepped through these spots, I would be so cold my teeth would chatter and I would tremble all over. It felt like a 20-30 degree difference, no exaggeration! I could see my breath and then take a couple steps forward or away from the cold spot and feel normal again (with no visible breath).

The next out-of-the-ordinary thing that I experienced was the scent of a strong floral perfume. I thought it was strange to smell anything flowery since it was November and nothing was in bloom. As I had the strongest whiff of perfume, I stepped into another one of the icy spots.

Moments later we passed through several more frigid zones and then, all of the sudden, we all three came to a dead stop. We stepped into a warm spot and I don’t mean that it was normal temp that was feeling warm to us in comparison to extremely cold patches. It was hot! I could actually feel the heat seeping through the fleece I was wearing! My face felt like it was being hit by the air of a hairdryer. T. and C. also were feeling it. Just as C. exclaimed, “You have to be feeling how warm this is!” all of the sudden our noses were filled with smell of gunpowder…strong gunpowder! Then it passed, but this happened a couple more times. I knew then I was truly experiencing some type of residual paranormal event. It was very exciting.

The next thing that happened, however, terrified me and has drug me down to be the wuss that I have now become. As we were searching for more of these warm, gunpowdery spots, we ran into another of those extremely cold patches. Then in the not-so-far distance, we heard a woman’s voice moaning. She sounded panicked and distraught. Her moaning eventually changed into what sounded like her calling a name. It was one syllable name…something like John, Bob, or Tom…I couldn’t quite make it out. C. and T. also were hearing it. The woman sounded so pitiful that I wanted to cry. Her desperate name calling was moving closer and closer to where I stood. I was then utterly and truly freaked! I wanted to run…quickly. But I was totally frozen. I could not move at all. I was scared to death. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. As I stood there petrified with fear, I wondered what would happen when her voice eventually reached my face. Even now, I feel sick recalling the sound of that disembodied voice coming ever closer to me. Luckily, it suddenly stopped. I touched my pants to make sure I didn’t wet them. (haha) Then I stared over at T. and C. who were looking just as dumbfounded as me. It was several minutes before we could move again.

C. pulled out a recorder to see if we could catch the voice on tape. I wanted to cry. I wanted to leave right then. No more of this! C. spoke into the recorder asking for anyone to make their presence known. As soon as he spoke the words, there was an extremely bright light at the top of the hill. I dove into the woods, not even caring that I might be crouching down with a snake. I feared that it might have been a park ranger, but we never saw the light again. Whether it was a ranger or a beckoned presence, I don’t know. The jury is still out on that one.

I heard men’s voices in the woods behind us and toward the opposite end of the field. It sounded like many. I didn’t know what they were saying. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to be as far from there as possible. I knew that the voices I was hearing were not those of the living. I heard one man’s voice, yelling in the distance. It sounded like he was yelling, “Let’s leave! Let’s leave! Let’s leave!” I jumped to my feet. (He didn’t have to tell me twice! I was beyond ready to leave! haha.) I could tell by the expression on C.’s face that he was listening to the man yelling. I tried to calm down to listen again and the more I listened to the man repeatedly yelling out this phrase, I realized he was saying, “Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!” I asked C. what time it was. The time he told me was the time that I had read on a plaque earlier that the Union Army had retreated toward Rossville. And the direction that I heard the voice coming from? Oh, where else but towards Rossville!

C. and T. then told me they were ready to leave. I was so glad that I didn’t have to be the scaredy cat to tell them I wanted to go first! We walked the trail through the woods as fast as possible. I could still hear voices around me and occasionally see flashes of light in the woods around me. I felt like running as if something was chasing me. I had never been so damn happy to see any automobile as I was C.’s truck that night.

I was silent (for once in my life) in the truck for a while on the ride back home. When we did resume normal conversations, I tried to think of everything but what had just happened. C. dropped me off at my car in the parking lot that we met up in just off of the interstate. I had a five or ten minute drive back to my apartment. I felt so scared still, like something was with me. I know that sounds crazy. When I pulled into my apartment complex, a rock flew up and struck my windshield. Thinking (and hoping) it was kids acting up, I got out of my car only to see that no one was there and there was nowhere for anyone to hide.

I was so freaked out…no, I was terrified, actually. I slept with my lights on. I kept hearing sounds within my apartment that night. I had never wished that I was in the arms of some strong man more than I did that night! Yes, I remember wishing for one desperately that night…or at the very least my mama!