Whistling "Dixie"
Susan and Gerald Porter honeymooned in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which, while not as popular with newlyweds as Niagara Falls, Bermuda or even the Poconos, was, nonetheless, a favorite place of the Porters. Gerald was a professor of American history at a small college located in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley as well as an avid Civil War buff. His wife, Susan, a commercial artist who illustrated children's books and magazines, shared her husband's interest in American history. Thus, the Porters were perfectly happy touring the battlefield instead of spending their honeymoon in a more romantic locale.
Over the next two decades, the couple frequently made the two-hour drive from their home in Allentown to the Gettysburg National Military Park. During those trips, they saw every monument, visited every museum, took every tour (including the popular ghost tours) and ate at every historic inn in Gettysburg. They journeyed to the national military park so often, in fact, that Susan was as familiar with Steinwehr Avenue and Taneytown Road as she was with the street on which she and Gerald lived. In short, the Porters cherished many fond memories of the historic Pennsylvania town. It had even been their plan to buy a home there when Gerald retired from teaching. That was why, when her husband died of a brain tumor at the age of forty-two, Susan Porter decided to pack up her belongings and move from Allentown to Gettysburg.
Finding the right house was not an easy task. The real estate agent had shown the widow dozens of homes, but there were none she liked, or rather, none that Gerald would have liked. Then one day she drove past an old barn. Built in 1854, it was made of stone and wood and was shaped like a New England saltbox. Susan later learned that during the battle the barn had served as a Confederate field hospital.
Then in 1978, after having stood vacant for almost ten years, the old building was purchased by a local architect and entrepreneur who made extensive renovations and turned it into a microbrewery and restaurant. After twenty-five years of operation, the restaurant closed, and the barn was put up for sale. Knowing how much Gerald would have loved to live in a house so rich in history, she contacted the realtor and bought the place.
Using her artist's imagination, Susan viewed the interior of the barn with a critical eye and saw definite possibilities. Most of the renovations were cosmetic in nature since the architect had installed hardwood floors, skylights, a large stone fireplace and an energy-efficient heating and air conditioning system back in '78. When remodeling, she decided to leave most of the space open. The large main room, formerly a dining area, was divided into four zones: the living space and Susan's work area were located in front of the large windows, and her bedroom and dining area were located in the rear of the building. The restaurant's kitchen was subdivided into a much smaller kitchen, a pantry and a laundry room. The former coatroom became her walk-in closet. Finally, Susan combined the men's and women's restrooms into one bathroom, adding a shower, a jetted bathtub and a large linen closet.
Furnished with Chippendale reproductions and decorated in ocean tones of beige, blue and green, the renovated barn had the overall effect of a spacious and comfortable home. After she finished putting up the window treatments, Susan added a final personal touch. She had gone through Gerald's old photographs and selected several shots of Gettysburg, which she then had enlarged and framed. They were now proudly displayed on the barn's thick wooden support beams.
In no time at all, Susan grew to love her new home. In a way, living in Gettysburg—in an area where she and her husband had shared so many good times—lessened her loneliness for Gerald. Her work, too, was a comfort in her time of bereavement. For several months, she kept busy illustrating a new series of classic literature for children that was to feature the works of such authors as Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne and Louisa May Alcott—all rewritten with a younger audience in mind.
After Susan dropped the completed illustrations for Great Expectations into the FedEx box, she decided to take a few days off before beginning work on the rough sketches for Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. During the next three days, in celebration of the anniversary of the battle, several regiments of volunteers would stage reenactments of the important engagements that had taken place in Gettysburg early in July of 1863. The culmination of the exhibition was to be a presentation of Pickett's Charge. It was an event she had been looking forward to for some time.
* * *
On the morning of July 1, Susan woke early, hoping to get to the battlefield before the tourists started to arrive, thus avoiding the inevitable traffic jams and shortage of parking spaces. While she was eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast, she heard the steady, rhythmic sound of marching feet. Assuming a group of reenactors was in the neighborhood, she picked up her digital camera and went to the window to take a photograph, but the street was empty. As she gazed down the length of deserted road, the sound of the footsteps faded away.
A short time later, while she was getting dressed, Susan heard the unmistakable sound of a drum beating a military cadence. Curious, she went out to the yard to discover the source of the drumbeat. From outside, she could clearly ascertain that the sound was coming from inside the former barn, yet a search of both the main floor and the loft revealed nothing. Soon the drumbeat, like the footsteps she had heard earlier, stopped.
"They must have been echoes I heard," she reasoned. "Or perhaps one of the neighbors was playing the television too loudly. Surely there was no one inside my house playing a drum. The idea is ludicrous!"
In either case, Susan put the mysterious sounds out of her mind, grabbed her camera and headed for the battlefield.
The events scheduled for the first day of the reenactment included a restaging of the battles of Seminary Ridge, Oak Hill, McPherson Farm and Cemetery Ridge. After the mock battles, a ceremony was held honoring Major General John Reynolds of Pennsylvania, who had been killed during the early hours of the fighting.
When Susan returned home later that afternoon, she decided to watch television and catch up on her sewing. She sat on the couch with her sewing basket in her lap, picked up the remote control for the TV and scanned through the channels. Sadly, the networks' afternoon programming seemed to consist mainly of talk shows, game shows and soap operas. HBO was showing Titanic for the umpteenth time, and TNT was showing—what else?—Gettysburg. As Susan mended split seams and sewed on loose buttons, she watched the epic Civil War movie that had been filmed on the very ground where the reenactments were now taking place.
When she finished her sewing, Susan shut off the TV and went into the kitchen. After a few minutes, she heard a voice, two, in fact—voices that sounded remarkably like those of actors Tom Berenger and Richard Jordan. Somehow, the television had come back on.
Maybe the remote isn't working properly, she thought and pressed the power button on the television.
The screen instantly went black, but before she made it back to the kitchen, she heard General Lewis Armistead telling Lieutenant General James Longstreet about his last meeting with Major General Winfield Scott Hancock. Someone or something had turned the TV back on again!
All morning long, Susan had tried not to think about the eerie footsteps and mysterious drumbeats she had heard earlier. Now, with this added incident involving the television, she had to consider the possibility that a supernatural force might be at work. For many years, there had been rumors of paranormal activities and ghost sightings in Gettysburg; however, although she had lived in the converted barn for almost a year, she had never experienced anything unusual until that day. Perhaps the ghost had been patiently waiting for this particular date to make his presence known.
The anxious artist was unaware of how long she had sat on the couch, trying to come to terms with the day's strange events, nor did she notice that on the television screen Jeff Daniels, portraying the heroic Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, was embracing his military aide and brother, Lieutenant Thomas Chamberlain, portrayed by Thomas C. Howell, amid the carnage of the battlefield in the final scene of the movie. Only the sound of the television being turned off when the credits started to roll brought Susan out of her dazed concentration.
The renovated barn was haunted; she was convinced of it. But what should she do? Move out? Never. She had grown to love the old place too much. It was her home; she was not about to leave. She would just have to wait and see what happened next. In an attempt to go about her normal routine, Susan ate dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, read for a while and then went to bed. Keyed up over the day's strange events, she lay in the four-poster trying to fall asleep but not succeeding.
At first, the sound was so faint she thought it might be the wind whistling down the chimney. As it grew in volume, though, Susan realized the whistling was human. After hearing a few bars, she recognized the tune. It was a song she had heard in nearly every Civil War movie since Gone with the Wind. Her unseen guest was whistling "Dixie." The tempo was lively as if the whistler were triumphantly marching into battle, whistling the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy.
Frightened, Susan lay on the bed, absolutely still, listening. Yet even after the ghostly melody faded away, it was a long time before she fell asleep.
* * *
Except for a few encores of "Dixie," the morning of July 2 was uneventful, so Susan went back to the battlefield to take more photographs. The second day of the reenactment centered on the bloody battles at Little Round Top, Big Round Top, Culp's Hill, the Wheat Field, the Peach Orchard and Devil's Den. Throughout the morning and early afternoon, officers shouted orders, muskets rang out, cannons roared and soldiers screamed in mock agony. Men went down, and the casualties mounted. But unlike the brave warriors whose mortal remains lay buried in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, these fallen soldiers would rise at the conclusion of the presentation. They would return to their homes and resume their lives.
On her way back to the barn, Susan stopped at the Farnsworth House, the 1810 inn that was now the home of the Candlelight Ghost Walk. There she explained her curious situation to a sympathetic tour guide who suggested she contact Professor Jack Shelton, a local historian with a great deal of knowledge about reported hauntings. When Susan phoned Professor Shelton, he agreed to meet with her the following morning to discuss the possibility of the barn being haunted.
Late that night, she lay in bed listening to the now familiar whistling, but this time the tempo of the tune had changed. It was no longer lively and triumphant; instead, it was slow and mournful, sounding like a funeral dirge.
* * *
July 3 was the anniversary of the final day of the battle and the last day of the reenactment. Professor Shelton arrived precisely at nine o'clock. After a brief tour of the barn and a short discussion of the renovations, the two sat down to coffee, and Susan told the historian about the unusual sounds that she had heard the previous two days. Jack then told her about the dozens of other people who had claimed to see, hear, smell or feel paranormal phenomena in and around Gettysburg.
"Not all the reported ghosts are those of soldiers killed during the battle," he told her. "Some died before the war, and others died long after peace had been restored to the area. Most of the spirits were connected to a particular building, as is probably the case with your spectral whistler."
"I think the ghost might have been a Confederate soldier who died here in the barn when it was being used as a field hospital," Susan suggested.
"That's a logical assumption, but ...."
Before Jack could finish his sentence, the eerie whistling began. The professor was fascinated, for although he was considered an expert on local hauntings, he had never experienced anything supernatural firsthand.
"Do you think I should hire a medium and hold a séance? Maybe I could find out who the ghost is and what he wants."
"I wouldn't advise you do that. Many of the so-called mediums have no actual psychic abilities. But I can call some of my associates at Penn State and see what they recommend."
The whistling faded away for a short time and then resumed. Jack and Susan listened in silence until it once again died away.
"Remarkable!" the professor exclaimed in awe.
Susan looked at her watch. Pickett's Charge, the highlight of the three-day reenactment, was scheduled to begin in less than an hour. Jack offered Susan a ride, and the two continued their discussion on the drive to the battlefield.
As the artist watched the charge from her position on Cemetery Ridge, her thoughts went to the spirit who had been haunting her barn for the past few days. Had he taken part in Pickett's courageous yet doomed charge in which eleven thousand men attempted an assault on the Federal line and only one-third of which made it back? Had he bravely whistled "Dixie" while trying to cross that long field, marching straight into enemy fire?
The remainder of the day's events included lectures, demonstrations and presentations on the customs, crafts and artifacts of the Civil War era. But many of the tourists left once the fighting was over. Finally, at 4:00 p.m., after a tearful closing ceremony, the reenactors broke camp and headed home.
That evening, things were quiet in the barn. After dinner, Susan worked on her sketches of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. She had been drawing for three hours when she heard the drumbeats, joined by the marching footsteps and the mournful whistling. She braced herself and waited, but this time the sounds did not go away. The sudden, deafening boom of a gunshot sent a stab of fear through the terrified woman's heart. Immediately, all other sounds stopped, and an eerie silence descended upon the room. She waited with bated breath, her every nerve tense and alert. The next sound she heard would stay with her for the rest of her life. It was a low, soft sobbing, one filled with hopelessness, defeat and pain, the crying of a boy probably no older than sixteen.
After what seemed like an eternity, the weeping subsided, and Susan could hear the sounds of heavy breathing and a beating heart. At first, her own lungs and heart seemed to work in unison with those of the revenant. But then, as if competing in a deadly race, the spirit began to lose ground. Slower, slower—until the last breath and the final beat. They were the last unearthly sounds Susan would hear. There would be no more drums, marching footsteps and whistling of "Dixie." The ghost was gone for good.
* * *
The next day, Susan visited the Gettysburg National Cemetery. She doubted that her mysterious ghost was buried there since it was a cemetery for the Union dead. The remains of most Confederate soldiers, originally buried where they fell, were later dug up in 1872 and re-interred in Southern cemeteries. She looked around the semicircular-shaped grounds where over thirty-five hundred Yankees were buried. Of that number, more than sixteen hundred of them had but one word to identify them: unknown.
As she stood amidst the memorial stones, Susan recalled the words of Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
As Lincoln had predicted, people did not forget what those brave men did on this battlefield on those three fateful days in July 1863. The national cemetery, the preserved battlefield, the museums and the monuments have kept that memory alive through the years. Dedicated volunteers, like those who had camped on the grounds the past three days, brought that memory to life. Yet despite the reenactors' meticulous attention to detail and the artfully staged mock battles, nothing would ever impress upon Susan Porter the horror and heartbreak that was Gettysburg as did the revenant in her barn who had whistled "Dixie."
Here's Salem watching a reenactment from Little Round Top. You won't hear him whistling "Dixie." Being from Massachusetts, Salem and I are Yankees.
