S1-Episode 4: Haunted Battlefields - Shiloh, and Chickamauga's 'Old Green Eyes'

In this episode, we'll explore two of the hardest-fought battles in the southern theater of the American Civil War: Shiloh, with it's random wandering spirits, and the entity that haunts Chickamauga known to the locals as, 'Old Green Eyes'.

Transcript

Welcome to the Tennessee Ghosts and Legends Podcast. My name is Lyle Russell. I am your host, and I love a good ghost story. In this episode, we’ll discuss two haunted Civil War battlefields; the random and wandering spirits at Shiloh, and the terrifying phantom that haunts the Chickamauga Battlefield known as ‘Old Green Eyes.’

Between the years of 1861 to 1865, over 620,000 Americans lost their lives across the scarred U.S. landscape, and Tennessee was the site of many of those bloody contests. Two of the most significant Tennessee sites are Shiloh, near Savannah, Tennessee in Hardin County, and Chickamauga just across the border into Georgia south of Lookout Mountain. Both battlefields saw tremendous casualties; Shiloh with 23,700 and Chickamauga with 34,600, nearly 10% of the lives lost in the Civil War happened in these two battles. While many battles in every conflict are given the title of “the bloodiest battle,” Chickamauga comes in only second to Gettysburg, with Shiloh being a close third for the title in the American Civil War. Two quoted accounts of the carnage at Chickamauga come from a pair of Confederate soldiers that witnessed the aftermath. 

In his book, “Reminiscences of the Civil War”, Confederate General John B. Gordon wrote of Chickamauga, “Words, however, cannot convey an adequate picture of such scenes; of the countless costly, daring assaults; of the disciplined or undisciplined but always dauntless courage; of the grim, deadly grapple in hand-to-hand collisions; of the almost unparalleled slaughter and agony.” Even the name, Chickamauga, is said to translate in English to “River of Death”.

A local farmer and Confederate Cavalry soldier named Larkin Poe, who’s family home was close to the site, wrote of what he saw in the aftermath of the costly two-day battle; “The moon was far down the west and cast a ghostly light over the woods and fields. The stillness of the night was unbroken except for the sound of my horse’s hooves and the hoot of some solitary owl. I had seen an old house near Jay’s Mill filled with wounded and suffering men, and I had hardly started till I began to see dead soldiers yet unburied, lying in and near the road. I rode on, turning my horse first to the right and then to the left to avoid the thick-strewn bodies. In places I saw where great trees had been splintered by shells and riddled by bullets… Just before reaching the Brotherton house, I came upon a scene of death and destruction noteworthy even on that terrible field. I saw a piece of artillery, evidently a Federal piece, which had been knocked from the wheels by a direct hit from our guns, and apparently most all of the horses and men belonging to the gun had perished there for their bodies lay in grotesque heaps around their piece.”

In the paranormal community, a common thought is that sites of great tragedy or loss of life tend to draw the most spiritual energy and can attract the attention of malevolent entities. This could be an explanation for why there seems to be so many reported hauntings of Civil War battlefields. And if the adage about malevolent entities is true, that could be the case with the phantom called ‘Old Green Eyes’ at Chickamauga.

One of the earliest accounts of a possible supernatural encounter at the battlefield comes from a book written by Susie Blaylock McDaniel called “The Official History of Catoosa County.” In this strange tale, a resident near the battle site was returning home after attending the 1876 American Centennial celebration held on Market Street in Chattanooga. While passing through the battle site, a man known locally as “Uncle Jim” Carlock and his companions encountered a large creature they described as being over 10 feet tall with a white, furry head. The area was remote, with no houses or light shining other than the moon, and he and another reveler called Mr. Shields were on horseback while the rest of the party rode in a wagon. Shields, it is said, charged the creature and reached it before it could escape, swinging wildly and hitting it in the head. The creature cried out, almost in the sound of a baby or a young child’s voice, and said, “Let me alone!” He later stated the creature they encountered was probably no creature at all but was a washer woman balancing a basket of clothes on top of her head. Even if that were true, why would a washer woman be out in the middle of the night on a remote battlefield with laundry? Even if the encounter was not supernatural, it was at least odd.

There are brief mentions in many accounts of soldiers claiming to see Old Green Eyes immediately after the battle around Snodgrass Hill, crawling among the dead Union soldiers left unburied on the field. Early accounts in Native American lore say this creature, or one similar to it, has inhabited the area for centuries. 

When something can’t be explained to the rational mind, the mind rationalizes what it can and makes up the rest. With Old Green Eyes, the legend varies wildly as to what the creature actually is. Some accounts say it takes the appearance of a large cat like a tiger, a floating head, a small goblin-like creature, a large white-headed creature like the one Jim Carlock described, or a disheveled Civil War soldier that was left unburied and has returned to exact revenge for the slight. Some who believe in the metaphysical say it could be an elemental being; a guardian of the ancient mound-builders that inhabited the era in prehistoric times, and some who believe in the spiritual say it is a demon come to feed on the pain and suffering that remains over the battlefield’s many casualties. As the legend is retold over generations, the tale becomes taller, the details become darker, and the creature becomes more sinister.

Many paranormal investigators have ventured into the park at night trying to find or make contact with Old Green Eyes or other wandering spirits. The area of the park around Snodgrass Hill is touted as the most haunted area of the park. One group of female investigators in 2001 had a sleepless night, claiming to have heard horse hooves running, gun fire, smelling gunpowder and strong odors of alcohol. They also reported an overwhelming sense of melancholy and a feeling of being constantly surrounded throughout the night. In their photos from their investigation, they claim to have captured several images of floating orbs around the battlefield monuments and encountering several ghostly mists. Many locals and long-time residents around the park claim to have encountered Old Green Eyes, with the overwhelming majority describing him as a large man with long, black stringy hair and wearing a riding duster coat. Many of those same residents do not speak about him lightly, saying the malevolent spirit is real and something to be very fearful of. Some others add that he has fangs and claws, resembling more of a demon than a man.

In one such tale, a Chattanooga teenager in the late 50s/early 60s took a shortcut through the park on a foggy and drizzling night while on his way to pick up his date from her house in Georgia. The young man stated the fog and rain made it difficult to see, but in the distance, he saw incredibly bright green headlights coming toward him in the fog. He didn’t think anything of it at first, other than he had never seen a car with green headlights before until he realized they were not headlights at all, but the eyes of something running toward his car in the middle of the road. He swerved off the road and hit a tree trying to avoid the collision. As he lay there in the front seat, the eyes stared at him from a distance through the cracked windshield, unblinking and circling the wreck for several minutes while making a terrible moaning sound. Suddenly, the creature leapt onto the crumpled hood of his wrecked truck giving the injured driver a close up view of his stalker. He described it as hunched over with long, dark and stringy hair past its waist and a large jaw with sharp fangs jutting out. It watched him for a long while with those glowing green eyes until another approaching car scared it off. When the park rangers found him and his wrecked car, they dismissed his claim as a severe bump on the head and a hallucination. Of all the accounts, this one is difficult to determine if it is true or not.

A more modern encounter involves a Park Ranger named Edward Tinney, a 17-year veteran park historian at Chickamauga, who claims a close encounter with Old Green Eyes, or something similar to him. He claims that the ‘Green Eyes’ spectre is a soldier who lost his head to a cannonball and his phantom head is searching the battlefield for his body, but that other ghosts are known to roam the grounds. During a Civil War reenactment event, Tinney and a fellow ranger took up a patrol of the park on foot near where the reenactors were camped at around 4am. After crossing an intersection within the pitch-black park, a tall dark figure appeared at the end of the road and started toward them aggressively. He described it as being over six feet tall and wearing a long black riding cloak with black stringy hair. They stopped and watched as the man approached and came very close to where they stood. It looked up at him with not green, but dark glistening eyes and a feral-looking grin. As quickly as it approached them, it disappeared as car lights in the distance started up the road towards them. They could not explain what they both saw.

A story from a reenactor at the park on a different date tells of a phantom patrol of soldiers encamped in the park during a living history days festival. He states on their first night, he and some of his reenactment group approached a neighboring campsite where several men were encamped around a fire and were having dinner. The reenactor states they spoke with the men for several hours about the battle before heading back to their campsite to turn in. The following morning, they packed and went back to wish their neighboring campers luck during the event, but the camp and all trace of those men or their dinner fire was gone. He says the site was completely natural and undisturbed as if no one had touched it for years.

Another reported encounter happened on a foggy night near Wilder Tower within the park, where a restaurant worker was taking a short-cut to home after a long shift. She claims in an S-curve near the tower, she slowed down because of the thick fog and caught a glimpse of an apparition in the road with big, glowing green eyes that disappeared as she got closer. Having heard the tales of ‘Green Eyes’ growing up around the area, she states she never thought she’d actually see it, and now will not go near the park after sundown.

Chickamauga has two other special ghosts of note, the first being called “The Lady in White” that is reportedly seen around the Snodgrass Cabin area. It is said she wanders the field in her wedding gown looking for a lost love in the battle. Another tale tells of a group of teenagers working a hayride event near Wilder Tower where they encountered a phantom torch floating in the tree line. When they investigated, they claim to have clearly seen a skeletal figure in a Confederate uniform dismount a phantom horse with glowing green eyes and continually called out for an “Amy” before disappearing in the brush. Could those two spirits be seeking each other, their souls destined to wander the battlefield in an endless search for one another?

At Shiloh, many of the paranormal reports mirror those at Chickamauga; the sounds of phantom hoof beats, smells of spent gunpowder, echoes of gun shots and cannon fire, and drums sounding out battlefield commands. One of the strangest occurrences is the pond on the property, nicknamed The Bloody Pond, will sometimes appear red. Rangers have dismissed this as heat-driven algae blooms at the hotter parts of the year, but not everyone is ready to dismiss the paranormal explanation. After the battle, it is said the pond was completely red from the blood of both Union and Confederate soldiers using its water to clean their wounds.

Shiloh had a storied past even before the battle, as it is the site of several Native American burial mounds. Park visitors have reported sighting orbs moving in and out of the ground around the mounds, hearing tribal singing and drumming in the woods, and strange sudden drafts of hot and cold air mismatched to the current season. Some feel freezing gusts in the summer and heated blasts during the winter.

When the battlefield became a park, several unit monuments were built in areas significant to that unit’s role in the battle, much the same as monuments at other Civil War battlefields. Many reports of gunfire and phantom yelling are common around the monuments. This is a very common occurrence for those who walk the battle line by The Hornet’s Nest. Some commentors on the Park’s website claim to have heard phantom moans and cries for help nearby when there was no one else around. 

Near the Peach Orchard stands a cabin that is often photographed by visitors. Some claim to have captured images of a little boy with a drum by the cabin. One visitor who posted about the drummer boy spirit claims the spirit spoke to them on their phone’s voice recorder. When asking his name, they heard a response of “Jack.” They also asked his age and got the reply of “nine.” Park records indicate the youngest Shiloh drummer to be 11-year-old Johnny Clem who survived the battle, but there could have been an unknown younger one elsewhere that perished in the fight. There have been repeated sightings of a little boy in grey and white clothes seen descending the cabin ladder and running into the woods. It’s possible this apparition was a bystander that hid in the cabin and his spirit replays him running from the battle in fear.

The Peach Orchard is home to another Shiloh ghost that appears and disappears at random places on the road around the cabin. He’s always wandering slow, as if exhausted or possibly wounded, and his features and clothing are always non-descript and drab. As the people who see him get closer, he disappears only to reappear somewhere else along the road a short time later.

Some of the structures at Shiloh are also reportedly haunted. The rebuilt Shiloh Church, a replica of the original cabin-style one-room church that the battle site is named for has reports of visitors being touched or feeling like they are being watched, and some apparitions will show up in visitor’s photos on the inside of the church as a white mist or fog. In the ranger’s housing area, many reports are made of doors and windows shutting or opening on their own, and of strange drafts of hot or cold air in closed rooms.

While Shiloh doesn’t have a reported recurring entity like Chickamauga’s Old Green Eyes, it is no less spiritually active. There is little doubt that these enshrined sites have seen great pain and suffering, and perhaps some of those intense feelings of anguish remain to remind the living of what happened there in hopes the pain and suffering is never repeated. 

So, what haunts the historic Chickamauga battlefield? Is Old Green Eyes real? One tale says no; that it’s a story made up by a park ranger in the 1960s to resurrect interest in visiting the park. While that could be true, it does not account for the many varied encounters people claim to have in the battlefield park.

What about Shiloh? Do you think those random spirits people claim to encounter are souls left behind to relive their anguish where they died so tragically?

I have personally visited both battlefields, Shiloh with a guided tour and Chickamauga on my own accord. While I did not encounter any spirit manifestations at either site, there is a heaviness to the landscape, much like the paranormal investigators claimed when they said they felt an overwhelming melancholy. Perhaps that sensation is simply the weight of history for those who care to learn it. 

If there was any place that I felt the heaviest to me, it would have been the area known as The Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh. There are many descriptions written by soldiers who experienced the carnage in that narrow and sunken roadway. A young Confederate soldier named Henry Morton Stanley described his experience at Shiloh; “How the cannon bellowed, and their shells plunged and bounded, and flew with screeching hisses over us! Their sharp rending explosions and hurtling fragments made us shrink and cower, despite our utmost efforts to be cool and collected. I marveled, as I heard the unintermitting patter, snip, thud, and hum of the bullets, how anyone could live under this raining death. I could hear the balls beating a merciless tattoo on the outer surface of the log, pinging vivaciously as they flew off at a tangent from it, and thudding into something or other, at the rate of a hundred a second. One, here and there, found its way under the log, and buried itself in a comrade's body. One man raised his chest, as if to yawn, and jostled me. I turned to him and saw that a bullet had gored his whole face and penetrated into his chest. Another ball struck a man a deadly rap on the head, and he turned on his back and showed his ghastly white face to the sky.”

Members of the Shiloh tour group I was with decided to walk the distance from the Confederate artillery line across the field to the low berm where Ulysses S. Grant described, “it would not have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction and stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground." We then traversed the entire length of the Union line; walking through a young forest that has replaced the splintered and shattered trunks of the trees those men hid behind as Confederate lead rained down on them. A battle that saw so much carnage is bound to leave some spiritual energy lingering. Our walk was silent, and it was difficult not to feel surrounded by what happened there.

At Chickamauga, I was not able to spend much time outside of the visitor’s center but taking in everything that happened there gives even that modernized building a heavy feeling, as if the eyes of those who fell watch your every move when you enter their hallowed ground. After leaving the battlefield and a short drive north back into Tennessee, I spent a considerable amount of time walking among the tombstones of Chattanooga National Cemetery, where many of the fallen from Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge are interred. Of the 12,800 Confederates buried there, almost 4,200 are unknown and many more Union soldiers interred in mass graves, their names lost to history. Perhaps one of them is the earthly remains of Old Green Eyes.

Thank you for listening to today’s Tennessee Ghosts and Legends Podcast episode. I am your host, Lyle Russell, and remember, the dead may seem scary, but it’s the living you should be wary of. Until next time.