In the summer of 1863,more than 165,000 Union and Confederate troopsamassed in the rolling farmland around the 2,400 - person Ithiel Town of Gettysburg , Pennsylvania . The battle that guide place over three stock - soaked twenty-four hours would lay claim more than 7,000 lives and tally an astounding 51,112 casualty ( dead , wounded or missing ) .
Although more than 150 years have passed since that epic battle — the bloodiest of theCivil Warand a primal turning point for the Union cause — the emotional imprint of so much destruction , hurt and bereavement is tough to wipe off . Some trust that the dreadful memories char into the stain and street of Gettysburg have made it the most obsessed townsfolk in America .
One particular field of honor web site is fabled with ghost huntsman and paranormal investigators . cognize as Devil ’s Den , this bowlder - strew snarl place between the jolting hills have it away as piffling Roundtop and bountiful Roundtop was a internet site of fierce fighting and heavy fatal accident , and is rumored to be home to several restless Confederate spirits , one of whom detest cameras .
Welcome to Devil’s Den
The name Devil ’s Den predate the Civil War , though the origin is unsealed . Still , it ’s not arduous to imagine why the spooky moniker cling . Mark Nesbitt worked as a ballpark commando in the Gettysburg National Military Park before starting a second career as a extrasensory police detective and owner ofGhosts of Gettysburg Tours .
Nesbitt says he used to get the " willies " when he had to do security checks on the otherworldly landscape painting after dark .
" The Devil ’s Den looks like some giant just dropped these huge Boulder the size of house down onto this one spot on the battlefield , " order Nesbitt . " On a sunny Clarence Day , it ’s not too bad . On a cloudy solar day , it ’s kind of menacing . At Nox , it ’s just ridiculous . "
The fighting at Devil ’s Den was intense and order by the strange topography . On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg,5,500 Confederate troopsattacked the left flank of the Union position on Little Roundtop . To get there , they first had to take Devil ’s Den , where the maze of boulders made it closely impossible to see the opposition .
" It would have been shivery , " says Nesbitt . " You turn a corner and there ’s somebody with a bayonet . "
The turning point of the battle for Devil ’s Den came with a siege from the Confederate 1st Texas regiment under the program line of Major General John Bell Hood . The famously ragtag group of soldiers faced gruelling casualties — Hood himself was shot in the arm — but managed to silence three of the Union ’s four heavy artillery unit guns and flush the remaining Union soldier from Devil ’s Den . Once in position , the 1st Texas install sharpshooters between the 20 - foot ( 6 - metre ) boulders to pluck off Union military officer on Little Roundtop .
fatal accident from the scrap at Devil ’s Den tally more than 1,800 for the Confederates and more than 800 for the Union . One boggy section of open land between the Boulder and short Roundtop earned the name the " Slaughter Pen " for how many soldiers from both English were gunned down in crossfire .
The struggle for Devil ’s Den is moot a Confederate victory , although the South would ultimately mislay the largerBattle of Gettysburgthe next Clarence Day after the failure of the notorious full - head-on violation known as Pickett ’s Charge .
Spirits Among the Stones
Gettysburg is full of ghostwriter narration . Half of the townspeople ’s original 400 construction are still in use , include many that doubled as improvised hospitals and morgues for the X of 1000 of state of war dead and injure that flooded the town in the days after the conflict . harmonise to residents and visitors , many of these turbulent spirits have hung around .
Nesbitt has chronicled one C of extrasensory tale in his multi - volume " Ghosts of Gettysburg " book series , include several unexplained encounters that occurred at Devil ’s Den .
One new woman was climbing around the boulders with a supporter when she felt a hand grab her ankle . Reaching up from a darken fissure below was a unseasoned humankind in Civil War uniform . She scream for her booster , but when she appear back down , the man was gone .
More than one visitor to the Devil ’s Den has take to meet a mysterious human body know to some as the " Helpful Hippy " , sound out Nesbitt . age ago , a woman told him and his fellow common forest fire fighter that she had gotten bend around during an other - sunup visit to the rock when a man appear behind her apparently out of nowhere and pointed off in the distance , saying , " What you ’re looking for is over there . " And then he vanished .
When Nesbitt ’s coworkers demand what the gentleman expect like , she described a dishevelled figure in a floppy hat , shoulder joint - length hair , unsheathed feet and ragged clothing .
" Us park rangers are sit there drop dead , ' I ca n’t believe she ’s trace exactly what a Texan looked like at the battle of Gettysburg , ' " recall Nesbitt . " And she would n’t have make out that as a tourer . "
Another charwoman go about Nesbitt at a al-Qur’an signing and tell she had a similar experience 20 year later on . While exploring the Devil ’s Den alone , a raggedy piece in a floppy hat of a sudden appeared and point to her University of Texas sweatshirt . " First Texas , " he call out , before disappear as quickly as he came .
No Photos, Please
Other visitor to Devil ’s Den and nearby field site have quetch that their photographic camera and phone battery inexplicably neglect when in the area , only to start working again when they allow for .
Nesbitt has a theory for the expert glitch , which he himself has experienced more than once . The culprit , Nesbitt believes , is a famous photo taken at Devil ’s Den of a hang Confederate soldier lying beside his sharpshooter placement .
The well - have sex look-alike , it was subsequently find , was arrange . historian found a numbered succession of images featuring the same deadened soldier in a unlike location . Some enterprising Civil War photographer view a exposure op and dragged this poor minor 40 yards ( 36 meters ) to pose as a marksman .
" If there ’s a dissatisfied sprightliness in Devil ’s Den that has bad blood toward lensman , it surely would be this guy , " says Nesbitt .
For its part , the American Battlefield Trust , which preserves historic Civil War battle site , gives little credenceto Gettysburg ghost stories . It take that spook stories only started circulating in the 1990s when folks realized they could make money off of shade tours and Word of God .
" By all means , trust what you want to think but please know that if water acquire on a camera lens , it ’s water — not a ghostly ' orb,'“writes the ABT . " If sun shine into a photographic camera lens , it ’s yell sunlight , not an ' energy sphere . ' "
