The Good Death and the Civil War:The Haunting of an American Battlefield

John G. SabolC.A.S.P.E.R. Research Center

Also by John SabolGhost Excavator (2007)

Ghost Culture (2007)

Gettysburg Unearthed (2007)

Battlefield Hauntscape (2008)

The Anthracite Coal Region (2008)

The Politics of Presence (2008)

Bodies of Substance, Fragments of Memory (2009)

Phantom Gettysburg (2009)

Digging Deep (2009)

The Re-Haunting(s) of Gettysburg (2010)

The Haunted Theatre (2011)

Ghost Culture Too (2012)

Beyond the Paranormal (2012)

Digging-Up Ghosts (2nd publishing, 2013)

Burnside Bridge (2013)

The Gettysburg Experience (2013)

The Absence Above, A Presence Below (2013)

The Production of Haunted Space (2013)

Centralia, Pennsylvania (2013)

The Ghost Excavation (2013)

The Good Deathand the Civil

War:

The Haunting of an American

Battlefield

™©

Bedford, Pennsylvania, USA

Copyright 2014 by John G. Sabol and Ghost Excavation Books,Inc., Bedford, PA, USA. All rights reserved.

Front cover design by Mary Becker, USA. Front cover photos:Upper photo: General Rufus Ingalls & Family, Patriot Publishing Co., (Review ofReviews Co.), USA. Lower photo: historical archives (American Civil War). Backcover design and photo credit: Mary Becker.

The right of John G. Sabol to be identified as the author of thetext concepts has been asserted in accordance with section 77and 78 of the Copyright, Design & Patent Act 1988.

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All original photos are used with permission and copyrighted bytheir respective owners. Historical photos –Photo Archive.

ISBN-13: 978-1494744434ISBN-10: 1494744430

Ghost Excavation Books, Inc. ™©A division of C.A.S.P.E.R. Research Center™©,

Bedford, PA, USAwww.ghostexcavation.com

“A lady once asked me if I believed in ghostsand apparitions. I answered, with truth andsimplicity, ‘No Madam! I have seen far too

many myself!’”.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Belief is the uncritical acceptance ofsomething you can’t prove.”

Hans Holzer

The “Ghost World”The world of “ghosts” has changed. Oncethe haunt of “ghost hunters”, for thepast 125 years (or so), it hasmetamorphosed into “something”different. A “ghost” and its “haunted”nature has manifested into aninfluential conceptual metaphor (cf.Blanco and Peeren 2013) that has“appeared” in both popular (global)culture and academic circles. Thisinvolves “exploring and illuminatingphenomena other than the putative returnof the dead” (Ibid: 2).

A conceptual metaphor is a particularway of producing knowledge (Bal2010:10). This knowledge production isnot a “hunt” for the presence of thedead at haunted locations. Rather, itconcerns a series of questions that cantransmit knowledge across various socialscience disciplines (Blanco and Peeren2013:2).

Two of these questions are important formy current research, as envisioned inthis book. These are:

“the temporal and spatialsedimentation of history andtradition”; and

“the intricacies of memory andtrauma” (Ibid: 2).

This “spectral turn” of events will bere-turned back, in this book, to“ghosts” as the return of the dead,rather than its current broader use as aconceptual metaphor. History andtradition (as cultural belief and ritualpractice) in particular times and places(spaces) remain important in this re-turn. Memory and the trauma ofparticular “end times” in specificspaces take “center stage” in thisanalysis, with a focus on the “theaterof war”.

When and how do past entities labeled“ghosts” become real within a particularsocial community? How do theirmanifestations “speak” of past agency,

rather than present politics or thecontemporary use of metaphor? These arenot simple questions.

To seek answers, we must, likearchaeologists, “excavate” backwardsfrom a manifestation of presence toparticular “agents” of that presence. Inthe specific case of an apparition, thisagency may be the afterlifeconsciousness of an individual thatremains after the physical death anddecay of the body.

In this “excavation”, we must departfrom the notion that “ghosts” areinferred from their effects upon theenvironment (increases/decreases inambient conditions; a manifestation ofthe presence of something “other” thanwhat they were in life: “orbs”, shadows,light anomalies, etc.). It is moreconstructive to begin with thehypothesis that, under certainconditions (and possibly until certainconditions are met) past interactivepresence can (and do) manifest. This

(these) condition(s), I propose, arecultural (not physical) in nature.

This book is an exploration of aparticular kind of “ghost” or “specter”,one that has its origin in pre-Civil WarAmerica, and one that evolved into afull-blown manifestation on contemporaryCivil War battlefields. The context ofthis haunting becomes a critical elementin understanding these “ghosts” and whythey haunt. As Blanco and Peeren (2013)state:

“Historical events or memories….may giverise to vastly different hauntings….Allhistory and memory may indeed bespectral in some sense, butunderstanding the effects of particularinstances requires contextualization andconceptual delimitation” (2013:15).

Although Blanco and Peeren (2013) statethat “the post-1990 use of the ghost asno longer primarily a literal phenomenonrequiring empirical verification”(2013:21), in our research, theempirical verification of interactive

past presence remains a critical part ofthe fieldwork.

Like the work of the conceptualmetaphor, a “ghost excavation also focuses on “unearthing” those hidden“and neglected aspects of the social andcultural realm, past and present” (Ibid:21). In both realms, it is a “turn” awayfrom contemporary “ghost hunting”, andits ignorance (in most cases) of thepast social and cultural environments;and its (almost) total dependence ontechnology in the present to documentand analyze those potential pastoccurrences of presence at hauntedlocations.

There is more to a haunting than deadlyoutcomes, and a “ghost” is more than anephemeral metaphor. The power ofculture, and its belief and ritualsystems, play an important part. And Iam not referring to the contemporaryworld.

In our fieldwork, the presence ofapparitions is a natural occurrence. The

apparition is viewed as an ethnographicinformant, as we (during fieldwork)participate in their culture, and sensetheir behaviors and practices.

Bubandt (2012), among others, hastreated “spirits” (or “ghosts”) asinformants during ethnographicfieldwork. During our fieldwork, inexploring the social realities of theproduction of haunted space, wefacilitate the mediation andcommunication with “who” remains afterparticular events of a socially-producedspace have ended. This we do throughparticular performance practices duringthe “excavation” process.

The Civil War battlefield “ghost” is no“family” ghost, though “home” and thefamily are important factors in theirmanifestations. These battlefield ghostsare not evoked (and certainly notprovoked) in any ordinary way (“isanyone here?”; “show us a sign….make thelights blink…”).

These “ghosts” require a surrogate: aspecific, identifiable individual, suchas a fellow soldier, a commandingofficer, a family member. These are theroles that we enact in a “ghostexcavation” on these battlefields.

It has been suggested that there arevarious “regimes of communication”(Delaplace 2013) between “ghosts” andpeople. Different societies havedifferent patterns of interaction andcommunication. A “ghost excavation” iscontext-specific. We use different meansof communication with the “ghost”,itself dependent upon the culturalhorizon we are “excavating”.

Welcome, readers, to the “ghost world”of mid-19th c. America, and its “cultureof war” and the “culture of death” thatformed the social world and experiencesof the Civil War soldier! What followsis the basis for “how” and “why” we do aparticular form of fieldwork (the “ghostexcavation”) on these American Civil Warbattlefields.

PrefaceThis is a book about hauntedbattlefields where, in the majority ofengagements, it was men who fought anddied. The investigation of these hauntedbattlefields, however, is also a focuson women, and the importance of home andfamily. Both revolve around theexperience of death, preparation forthat death, and its relation to the endof life as a “good death”.

This is a different perception of war,battle, and the battlefield. It is notabout who won and who lost. With death,nobody wins. And suffering does not endas an official notification about afamily member who has died in war.

In Landscapes of the Western Front: Materiality Duringthe Great War (2012), Ross J. Wilson hassaid this about the study of “warcultures”. This involves:

“The multiple meanings and perceptionsthat individuals and groups, at home andon the front lines, created in response

to the conflict to endure its effects”(2012:9).

One particular “culture of war”, that ofthe American Civil War, was framed byparticular belief systems and ritualacts (the “culture of death”). Theresult of mixing these “cultures” on thebattlefield led, I propose, to “haunted”Civil War battlefields.

The concepts of the “good death” and“domestic imagery” (the importance of“home” and family), as part of this“culture of death”, led, in someinstances, to the reason “why” a CivilWar soldier would continue to remain onthe battlefield, even after 150 years.

Many of these “ghost soldiers”,enculturated in the “culture of death”,and regardless of religious affiliationor background, still “wait” for theproper rituals associated with dying at“home”. These soldiers, as an activeconsciousness of personal biographies,remain because they are still not“home”.

There were many kinds of death in theAmerican Civil War that went beyond thebattlefield. These other deaths are, inthe majority, not a minority. Theseincluded death by disease, starvation,guerilla warfare, food shortages,accidents, civilian casualties, andmilitary confinement, to name a few.

My focus here, however, is onbattlefield death, the “bad” death,quick and with unattended consequences:its possibility, its spatiality, and itsactuality as a particular way of endinga life.

What was the impact of this death, afterthe armies moved on, and the battlefieldappeared “clean” of remains and thedebris of combat? Did something, perhapssomeone (or someone’s memory of it all)still remain? If so, why? Was somethingunfulfilled, not accomplished, somewords that remained to be spoken orwritten as that final gesture ormessage?

This is a book about understanding howthese soldiers wanted to die, and whathappened when that did not occur. Thatit did, and often on these battlefields,may well attest to what occurred when aritual, part of an important beliefsystem, was not finalized.

What happens when (for example) a weekafter the battle of Antietam (September17, 1862), a Union medical officerreported the following: “The dead werealmost wholly unburied….” Where is the“good death” in this? A call of“victory” is a shallow phrase here.

Desperate acts like “throwing them (thedead) into pits like dead chickens”replaced the “home” and family plot, andthe ritual that was called (andinvolved) the “good death”. Theconsequences this may have had will beoutlined here, manifesting (in time) asthe birth of Civil War battlefieldhauntings.

These de-humanizing events that occurredin the early battles was replaced, still

inadequately, in later engagementsduring the war. Fellow soldiers tried tocomplete these rituals of the “gooddeath”. A “band of brothers” (thoserelated to one another, and those whoenlisted and fought together) becamereal “bands of brothers” to dying men,serving as surrogates for the loved onesat home:

They recorded the burial places; They wrote notes and interred them

with the dead; They listened to the dying man’s

final words; and if they survived They conveyed these dying thoughts

to the dead soldier’s family athome.

The “home front”, and its domesticimagery (family, and especially“Mother”) became a “battlefield homefront”.

Still, about half of the dead were neveridentified, remaining “lost”, missing inaction. How many of these soldiers werenever accorded any of the proper rituals

of the “good death”? That number, onceknown, will tell us “who” and how manyhaunt these battlefields.

The American Civil War changed thecourse of social history of mid-19th c.American society. It altered the imageof the afterlife, a “ghost”, and therole of women outside the household. Itwas not so much the trauma of thehorrors of war (that “culture of war”),or not knowing one is “dead”, thatproduced these “ghosts”.

It was the dying far from “home” andfamily without the proper rituals of the“culture of death” being observed andenacted that produced the haunting.This is their story, a “ghost story” ofthose who remain, waiting to go“home”...

Photo 1: Who Remains from this Battle Today?

Table of Contents

The “Ghost World”……………….................. 6Preface……………………............................... 11Table of Contents……………………............... 16Photographs/Illustrations……………........... 17Introduction……………………....................... 19The Archaeological Record...................... 25Problems with the Archaeological Record 38A Battlefield Ethnography…………………..... 42Contemporary Ethnographic Research….. 57

The Social Technology of Death…………….. 62Home and the Household……………………... 69Battlefield “Ghost Excavations”…………….. 75Summary……………………............................ 87Appendix……………………............................ 97 “Ending Vocal Performance” (“E.V.P.”) 97 Closure: The Beginning of a New“End” 98Bibliography………………………..................... 101Biographical Note………………….................. 108

Photographs/Illustrations

1.Who Remains from this Battle Today? ................................................ 15

2.The American Civil War Battlefield….. 24

3.What Remains of this Battlefield Space................................................. 25

4.What Remains of this Battlefield Space................................................. 26

5.Is This a Manifesting Field of Former Past Presence…………….............................. 32

6.Is This a Social Field of Former Past

Presence…………….............................. 32

7.Fieldwork on the Battlefield……………. 37

8.The “Jogger”……………………................ 39

9.The Civil War Battlefield………………….. 42

10. Did These Soldiers Die the “Good Death”?..........…….............................. 48

11. What Happened to these Soldiers after Death……………................................... 49

12. The “Good Death”………………….......... 63

13. Performing the Ritual of the “Good Death” on a Civil WarBattlefield (Antietam)……. 67

14. Performing the Ritual of the “Good Death” on a Civil WarBattlefield (Gettysburg)…. 68

15. “Ghost Excavations” at Burnside Bridge on the AntietamBattlefield in Maryland…….. 74

16. Burnside Bridge Today…………………..... 75

17. The Battle for Burnside Bridge…………. 78

18. Burnside Bridge (September 1862)….. 80

19. Dr. George Bronson………………............ 82

20. Dr. Bronson’s Wife…………………........... 83

21. The Search for Colonel Holmes………… 85

22. The Search for Colonel Holmes………… 85

23. A Civil War Hospital…………………......... 90

24. A Civil War Battlefield Investigation…. 92

25. The Family of a Civil War Soldier………. 95

26. A Family “Waiting” at Home…………….. 96

27. The Author..........................................108

IntroductionArchaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes, in her“Guide to the Prehistoric and RomanMonuments of England and Wales” (1951)has said:

“…..perhaps places where men had feltintensely and acted violently neverquite rid themselves of the effects;perhaps, such feelings are created onlyin the minds of later beholders – yeteven so, their survival is real”.

One such place where men “felt intenselyand acted violently” was an AmericanCivil War battlefield. But not all battlefields are haunted; not even all American Civil War battlefields.

During the American Civil War, a “lived”experience occurred in mass inparticular physical environments (campsand battlefields) which most soldiers,as “civilians”, never experienced before(especially a Southern soldier). Onesuch place, the battlefield, became a

large-scale environmental ensemble or“place ballet”.

These locations, as interactions ofindividual and group bodily routines(“drills”), rooted in particular spaces(the K.O.C.O.A.) became, because ofmassive deadly outcomes, an importantsite of place attachment for both theliving and the dead. This concept ofplace attachment had the potential oftransforming these battlefield spacesinto a (continuing) lived space with aunique character and ambiance.

The Civil War battlefield changed, Ipropose, from an initial visual“landscape” (pre-battle) to a auditory(heard) “soundscape” (during battle):

“Hasten Brothers, to the battle,

Loud the bugle sounds afar;

I am weary, wounded, dying,

But I hear the call for war”.

Hasten Brothers to the Battle (words byTheodore D.C. Miller).

The experience of battle assaulted asoldier’s sensorium. The drills did notprepare them for what they were toexperience on these battlefields.

Sight was at a premium. It wassurprising for them how little theycould actually see. During the firstmajor battle, Bull Run (or ManassasJunction):

“when the Rhode Islanders lay down – andthey often did – they found that allthey could make out was the red Virginiasoil beneath them….But mostly their foewas invisible….factor reducingvisibility was the smoke billowing fromall the muskets and cannon….no breezeswafted the smoke away from thebattlefield, so it hung like a Londonfog between the two sides….” (Detzer2004:256-57).

This obscurity of perception became acommonality of experience for the CivilWar soldier on the battlefield, as wasthe ensuing sounds of war:

“the gasping, the panting, the gruntingof men….the ripping open of cartridges,the rattle of ramrods plunging intomusket barrels, the clink of canteensagainst metal, the squealing wheels ofartillery vehicles, the drum signals,the shouting and swearing” (Ibid: 257).

This was the sight(lessness) and soundof the “culture of war” on a Civil Warbattlefield. Does this experience of thebattlefield remain today at theselocations? Today, many of these CivilWar battlefields are considered“ghostscapes” (for many paranormalinvestigators). These “haunted”(“ghostscape”) battlefields are uniquesensoriums, but not, I propose, placesof “paranormal” events.

As Relph (1981) said: “We must attend‘carefully to the particularity ofplaces and situations. It is theattempt to see clearly what there is’ ”(1981:177). This is not “alienating”these battlefields, marking them

exclusive, calling them “paranormal”sites. It is “excavating” what remains!

Still, why are some perceived to behaunted, and others not? RudyardKipling, the author of many fine novels,kept “six honest serving men” who taughthim all his knowledge. Their names were:“How?”, “Where?”, “When?”, “Why?”,“What?”, and “Who?” These are the six“ghosts” of the battlefield. It is these“ghosts”, I propose, who will determinewhich American Civil War battlefieldsare really haunted…..

Regarding a battlefield haunting, thereis less concern with what actuallyhappened in the past than in exploringwhat remains of that event as a mode ofpresent experience:

“If the historical past be knowable, itmust belong to the present world ofexperience; if it be unknowable, historyis worse than futile, it is impossible”(Oakeshott 1933:107).

In our investigations of hauntedAmerican Civil War battlefields, in

fieldwork I label a “ghost excavation”(Cf. Sabol 2013), we are not focused on“re-enacting” what has been recorded ashistory, as much as how and why thesesoldiers fought and what happened whenthey died on the battlefield. This is anexperiential (ethnographic) approach, aradical participation of “what happenedthere”. Our investigations are not adetached measurement of ambient space.

An important research question is how toreduce a seemingly multi-layered worldof mid-19th c. society into a finite oneof social norms and perceptions thatwere involved in a particular productionof past space (the Civil Warbattlefield):

“There is no perception which is notfull of memories….what you have toexplain….is not how perception arises,but how it is limited….” (Bergson (1908)1988:33).

This is a focus on how their perceptionson the battlefield were physicallylimiting: an emphasis on the auditory,

rather than the visual (due to intensesmoke from gun and cannon fire). Whatremains of this battlefield event shouldform part of this limiting perception,and our experience of it today.

On a Civil War battlefield, theselimiting perceptions were also culturalin nature. This involves the “habits”(learned through drills) of the “cultureof war”, and the “beliefs” (learned athome) of the “culture of death”.

Without some sense of how a Civil Warbattlefield, and dying on a Civil Warbattlefield, was “culturally-attuned”,there is no accurate (or authentic)means of determining “what” remains and“who” continues to manifest today. Weneed context, not measurement. Thisrequires a participatory aestheticsrather than a detached observer attunedto electronic devices or a TV monitor.

To become a “witness” to what happenedthere then, and “who” may remain theretoday, one must understand thehistorical facts (the “culture of war”)

and the culture that wrote those facts(the “culture of death”). One mustcomprehend how important research intothese historical facts and culture are,and how they intersect with acontemporary experience on thesebattlefields today.

Photo 2: The American Civil War Battlefield

The Battle of Bethel, 1861