Soldiers who die but don't move on

[Thirtieschild]

I was inspired by Pink Tiger's story to tell about our visit on the 101st anniversary of the Battle of Atlanta. We bought a house built (built, btw, in 1940) on one of the battle sites and moved in exactly 101 years after a battle had been fought there. It was mid-July, we had no air conditioning and I was seven months pregnant with our fourth child. Hot and exhausted, I went to bed as soon as it got dark, around 8 pm. (This was before daylight time.) I was half asleep when I heard the front door open and slam shut, someone run across the entry and up the stairs, where our three oldest children were sleeping. I figured DH, who worked nights, had come home early and gone upstairs to check on the kids. I would have thought no more about it, except that our 6-year-old said the next morning that she heard someone come up the stairs but when she got up to look there was no one there. And DH said he didn't come home early or go upstairs when he got home. We lived in that house 36 years and were never visited again. I don't know if someone was checking us out, or if someone was still fighting the Battle of Atlanta - or both. A neighbor, who is the most amazingly psychic person I've ever known, was aware of what she called "the creek people" who stayed around the creek behind the houses across the street. She didn't explain herself farther, and I'm left with the question - are battlefields crowded with souls who are still fighting, even after 100 years. Although I heard footsteps, I didn't feel uneasy, and in all those 36 years I never felt their presence. That, of course, doesn't mean anything.

I'm curious what any of you have felt and/or sensed at battlefields, particularly such a long time after the battle.

[PinkTiger]

1. I've had a sensation at a battlefield near here, at Pea Ridge, Ark.

When I was a news reporter covering local beats, I was assigned to cover Pea Ridge events; They don't have reenactments there, because of the fear it would damage the park, which is a living monument to the many who died there.
I did cover some book signings. Most of these took place on anniversaries of the battle, in March.
Every time I went there, I had a feeling of profound sadness. It wasn't the heat of battle I felt, but the emotion of the aftermath. About 2,500 men died there on March 7 and 8, 1862. Some are probably still buried there, although many of the men buried there were later removed to other graves by their families.
Most of the dead were young, probably teens and early 20s.
Its hard to imagine 2,500 dead young people.
In the Civil War we lost more than 600,000 people. More than any other war.
"At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these casualties exceed the nation's loss in all its other wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam. "
Source: http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm
Pea Ridge was not among the most costly in terms of dead: Gettysburg takes the title for the most, at 51,112, followed by Chickamauga and Chancellorsville, both more than 30,000 dead.
But Pea Ridge is one of the best preserved battlefields; the land looks virtually the same as it did in 1862.
I haven't had an encounter with a poltergeist; but I've had shivers and experienced emotions of such sadness that pale the actual grief I've had in my life when death hits. I can't explain it except to say it had to be a concentration of the emotion at that place.