Fought From April 12, 1861 – May 9. 1865, the American Civil War saw between 600,000 and 1,000,000 casualties. Among them were approximately 50,000 civilians, and 80,000 slaves. One battle, the Battle of Corinth, saw more than 23,000 casualties. It’s no wonder the Shiloh National Military Park, located in southern Tennessee, is haunted.
The Shiloh National Military Park was established on December 27, 1894 to commemorate the Battle of Corinth, the largest engagement in the Mississippi Valley, that raged around the Shiloh Church and Pittsburg Landing.
Corinth was a small but strategically important town where the east-west Memphis & Charleston Railroad crossed the north-south Mobile & Ohio Railroad, near the Mississippi-Tennessee border.
Commander, General Henry Halleck of the Union Army, considered Corinth and the railroad center at Richmond, Virginia to be “the greatest strategic points of the war.”
Halleck was so certain of this, that he merged the Army of the Tennessee, Army of the Ohio, and Army of the Mississippi into one massive force of approximately 120,000 soldiers.
On the other side, General P. G. T. Beauregard of the Confederate Army, also thought Corinth instrumental to their cause, “If defeated here we will lose the Mississippi Valley and probably our cause.” Already in control of Corinth, he had nearly 65,000 soldiers entrenched behind fortifications guarding the city.
The battle lasted from April 29, 1892 – May 30, with the Union defeating the Confederates.
The park spans more than 5,000 acres. Inside, one will find the historic Shiloh Battlefield, the Shiloh National Cemetery, the Davis Bridge Battlefield, and the Shiloh Indian Mounds. The cemetery, established in 1886 by the War Department, holds 3,584 Civil War soldiers of which 2,359 remain unidentified.
Visitors have reported hearing voices, footsteps, and even gunshots, as though the dead soldiers continue to wage war, trapped in space and time. In the pond, visitors have seen the water turn blood red, which is notable since the pond is a location rumored to be where soldiers would clean their wounds.
Also within the park is the Shiloh Indian Mounds – six rectangular mounds that served as platforms for the town’s important buildings. A town that existed before Shiloh, before the Civil War. The buildings are believed to have been a council house, religious buildings, and homes for the most significant leaders.
Those buildings covered five of the mounds – the sixth is believed to be the location where the town’s leaders and other important people were buried.
Visitors have reported freezing cold gusts of wind – even during the heat of summer. They have spotted colorful orbs darting in and out of the ground, hovering above the mounds.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the hushed sound of tribal singing.
You can visit the Corinth Contraband Camp, a site first established as a tent city for escaped slave families seeking shelter within the Union Army lines. By the middle of 1863 it resembled a small town, complete with a church, commissary, hospital, houses, and a street grid.
Then there is Davis Bridge. Davis Bridge was the site of yet another battle during the Civil War. The battle took place on October 5, 1862 and resulted in victory for the Confederate Army. It also resulted in the death of more than 570 casualties – reported by the Union. The Confederate Army did not report their losses. The bridge is no longer standing.
A man by the name of Anderson Humphrey’s made it a goal to “freeze” the battle in time so that visitors may feel the impact it had. His project, called “The Ghosts of Davis Bridge” has a goal of erecting more than 10,000 3D printed soldiers, standing in the same formation they would have held during the battle.
For visitors who want to experience the ghostly happenings at the Shiloh National Military Park and don’t see any, hopefully this display will provide the haunt needed.
Up Next: The Haunting of Myrtles Plantation