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Looking for ghosts at Cold Harbor Author and paranormal investigator Beth Brown, who calls herself a “skeptical believer,” wanted to find out if the stories she had heard about the site were true.
If there exist such things as ghosts, it makes sense that they would linger at Cold Harbor, where an estimated 16,000 men were killed, wounded, missing or captured during a fierce Civil War battle between the armies of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.
Author and paranormal investigator Beth Brown, who calls herself a “skeptical believer,” wanted to find out if the stories she had heard about the site were true.
At first, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to visit the park during the times most ghostly activity was reported—between 1 and 2 a.m.
“The park service was a little hesitant to talk about anything ghost related. They try to keep history in line, and highlight historical events,” she said. “But when they understood that I was trying to convey both history and legend, they were willing to help.”
Brown is the founder and president of the Virginia Society of Paranormal Education and Research, a group boasting about 150 members.
Brown took some of her fellow investigators with her after the Richmond Park Service granted her permission to visit the park at night. Her team included nine believers and skeptics, says Brown. They headed into the dark battlefield armed with cameras, night vision video equipment, EMF detectors and digital audio recorders.
They were accompanied by Barry Krieg, a law enforcement officer with the Park Service.
“The law enforcement agent was a diehard skeptic, which is great to have along,” said Brown. “But as night went on, that started to change.”
She says that the group kept hearing what sounded like someone following them along the path. When they turned and looked back through their night scopes, expecting to see a deer or other natural visitor, nothing was there.
Members of the group also detected the scent of sassafras, and watched as a thick fog about five feet high and twenty feet deep settled over the battlefield.
When the group later sorted through the evidence they had collected that night, they discovered several photographs that included light anomalies. In her book, Brown writes, “The Rangers were quite surprised at the number of unexplainable photographs we snapped that night and they even commented on how maybe there was some validity to all of the stories they had been told over the years.”
When asked why she chose to write about haunted battlefields, Brown said, “I grew up in Varina, surrounded by Civil War history, so this seemed a good match!”
Brown has been interested in ghost-hunting nearly all her life. “All kids are into it, it’s a natural curiosity,” she said. “A lot of people close to me died when I was young, and I had a curiosity about what had happened to them when they moved on. Everybody wants to believe that there’s something, when we move on from the earth.”
She acknowledges that she is as passionate about history as she is in the paranormal. “My husband jokes that I’m a history nerd, and need an excuse to put that to good use!”
Haunted Battlefields will be released June 1.
For more information about Virginia’s haunted attractions, visit http://www.virginia.org.
Before visiting Cold Harbor Battlefield, go to http://www.nps.gov/rich/historyculture/cold-harbor-tour.htm or call 226.1981.
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