The Phantom Carolers of Bloody Lane and Other Antietam Battlefield Haunts

“Raise the Colors and Follow Me!” Mort Kunstler Painting of the Irish Brigade at Antietam.

The Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862 was the bloodiest single day in American History. The casualties on that day exceeded the casualties of all of America’s previous wars combined. That such awful butchery would leave its mark on the field of battle is therefore not too surprising.

Visitors to Antietam Battlefield have had many spectral encounters over the years at Antietam, but one of the more curious incidents is the one I documented in Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War.

In Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War, I relate how a whole class of students from a boys’ private school in Baltimore while visiting on a field trip one time reported hearing unseen voices singing Christmas carols on the battlefield.

On reading their class reports about their field trip, their history teacher, an expert on the Civil War, was perplexed. The young scholars had penned their reports on the bus ride back from the battlefield and did not have time to engage in any collusion or organize a practical joke. What on earth did they think they heard?

After butchering the Irish Brigade in the open fields, it was the Rebel turn to be slaughtered in the Bloody Lane. This painting, by Captain James Hope, based on a field sketch, captures some of the horror of the awful carnage.

On quizzing the students, the majority told him they heard the caroling near a sunken road on the battlefield now called Bloody Lane, a place made famous by the charge of the Federal’s Irish Brigade, who suffered terrible losses in their attack across the open fields there.

When asked exactly what Christmas song they heard, they were united in saying “Deck the Halls” with its chorus of “fall-a-lalla-la.”

It was then a light suddenly went on in the teacher’s brain: “Faugh a Ballagh,” he knew, was the war cry of the famed Irish Brigade—yet none of the students could have known that!

The Federal attack over Burnside Bridge was a bloody and senseless incident, but one which has left spectral reminders

The Bloody Lane is not the sole spot at Antietam with a haunted reputation. Burnside Bridge, where Yankee troops tried to force a crossing over Antietam Creek and paid dearly for it, has had numerous visitors give reports of spectral encounters. Many report seeing ghostly figures, strange blue balls of light and the sounds of a phantom drummer drumming.

This small country church, called The Dunker Church, was used as a field hospital and is a hotspot of paranormal activity

Dunker Church, another local landmark that figured in the battle, has had reports of people seeing spectral soldiers haunting its environs. It is a small country church. During and after the battle it was used as a field hospital and for a time was the scene of a ghastly mass of the wounded ann dying. Soldier’s limbs were hacked off by the score, without anesthesia, and many was the mans who died in agony there.

Besides the phantoms said to roam its bloodied floorboards, eerie lights have been spied around Dunker Church at night.

The Pry House, used as McClellan’s headquarters, is now The Pry House Field Hospital Museum, and is open daily June-October. It served as a Union field hospital and visitors to it have also had uncanny encounters in and around it.

This photo, taken by a tourist of the Pry House, also used as a field hospital, may have captured a spectral presence. The house itself has had many reports of ghosts haunting it.

There are enough re-enactors and tourists who have experienced things at Antietam that cannot be explained. You do not need some hokey TV ghost hunter running around with a flashlight to his face for one to know that Antietam is a most seriously haunted piece of Civil War real estate.

If you want to learn of Lincoln’s paranormal relationship with the battle, see Chapter 10, The Paranormal Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Happy haunting!

Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War was the first comprehensive look at the hauntings and other paranormal activities associated with the American Civil War. It remains your best guide to the uncanny and unexplained aspects of the War Between the States and its aftermath.