This is horse ****. My Girl Friend went to college there. A. It was Penn Hall not the library. B. They only saw doctors and not blood anywhere. C. Wheres the Blue Boy? Cause thats REAL!

Gettysburg is supposed to be extremely haunted, and I think that at the very least it should be treated respectfully because of all the blood that was shed there and all the people that lost their lives there. I would never even try to convince anyone it’s not haunted, because it could very well be with all of the sudden deaths there.

First off to Adam, The sceen they saw was a civil war hospital. They supposedly saw doctors, and men being opperated on. They said it was a very grizzly sceen.
I was raised around G-Burg, and when I was in my late teens I saw and heard enough out on the battlefield to tell you it is very active. We could sit and argue the point all day, but I can prove it to anyone. Lets go out and sit on the field for awhile, I bet you either run home, or wet your pants.

Now i don’t know what to think. Half of you say thatit’s real and haunted, and the other half say it isn’t. Me and my friend were actually planning to go there this weekend and check out all the places. Can someone show me some proof? because now i’m just confused…

that story is fake. the gettysburg college library is haunted my a sniper’s ghost, the a freakin doctor. DAH!

that story is fake. the gettysburg college library is haunted by a sniper’s ghost not a freakin doctor. DAH!

Well I used to live in Gettysburg and i’ve heard most of the stories. I’ll attest to these stories because i no tis stuff is true. I’ve been to the Farnsworth house and if you really are interested in the supernatural then this is one place to put on your list. I’ve also been to the college and know for a fact that its haunted.

I never want to go there and see blood from the civil war. If I ever go there I will emediotly quit or leave as soon as I can.

I saw a show based on gettysburg ghosts. They did a recreation of where the women went down to the basement on the elevator. They were trying to go to the 1st floor but it took them to the basement and when the doors opened they saw a doctor and nurses operateing on a civil war guy. Then the doc looked right at them and motioned with his hand for thme to come and help. They didn’t set foot off the elevator just kept pressing the button for it to close the doors.

Its alright not to believe the truth until you have actually encountered a ghost or felt the presence of a ghost, but these ghost stoires are not fake…at least not most of them….but I do Civil War re-enactments and he stories I hear are not at all fake for many people to know…this is a very interesting story but the one I favor most is the story of the farmer with a row of cannons in his field with a battle….

Its alright not to believe the truth until you have actually encountered a ghost or felt the presence of a ghost, but these ghost stories are not fake…at least not most of them….but I do Civil War re-enactments and he stories I hear are not at all fake for many people to know…this is a very interesting story but the one I favor most is the story of the farmer with a row of cannons in his field with a battle….

I attended Gettysburg College in the early 80s. There are many ghost stories about Gettysburg and the battle. The Penn Hall hospital scene is a very popular one along with the lookout on the cupola of Penn hall. On occasion, several of us used to walk the battlefields looking for ghosts, but never saw a one. I’d love to see a ghost, but in all honesty never have.

My Spanish teacher sophmore year told the most convincing story I’ve ever heard about a civil war soldier appearing in her house. I think it was on Chambersburg Street, but I can’t quite remember.
If you like these stories, dig deeper into books and the internet and you will find many more Gettysburg ghost stories.

Actually, they didn’t quit their job over that. They just don’t work late anymore.

I also graduated from Gettysburg and had several experiences while I was there. However, let me clear up a few misconceptions. Adam is most likely correct in stating that this story probably originates from the Penn Hall tale which has been widely publicized by the History Channel’s “Ghosts of Gettysburg” program. As to the veracity of that story, I have no conclusive proof to offer one way or the other(though not for lack of trying – my best friend and I snuck into Penn Hall our Senior year and staked it out for a few hours post mid-night, including taking an elevator ride to the basement. The only thing we came away with was President Kate Will’s business card, but I digress).
What I can tell you is that odd things have been known to happen in the library, mostly involving books flying off the shelves on the forth (top)floor. Fact: the library (like most of the buildings on campus) is built on ground were soldiers were buried. While the Union recovered the bodies relatively quickly (within 9 months), the Confederacy was not able to reclaim their dead until after the war ended. Neither side worried with retrieving/searching for amputated arms or legs, they took only whole skeletons. There is a story that when the library was built in the early 1980s, there were apparently some bodies found,construction was temporarily halted, the bodies were relocated and properly reinterred, and the ground was blessed. Whether the blessing worked or not is up for debate.
As much as I hate to break bubbles, I can tell you for certain that the Blue Boy story relating to Steven’s Hall is (unfortunately) not true. What first tipped me off that it was possibly a hoax was the fact that my dad graduated from Gettysburg as well (several decades before me)and had never heard of this story. It turns out that the blue boy story was concocted by an English major during the 1970s for their senior thesis. One of my friends worked for the college archives and found the paper. In the interest of fairness, I will say that I had another friend who after graduation, got a summer job giving ghost tours in town at one of the firms and he said that they have an actual picture taken of a group of students and in the background there is a blue face in the window. Personally, I have little faith in purported evidence held by companies who make a killing exploiting the hopes of tourists.

That said, there are ghostly experiences to be had both at the college and the surrounding area, but you have little chance of finding them on a tour. If you want the real stories, talk to security gaurds, former resident assistants, and janitors. The stories they have to tell are usually less sensational, but are also probably more factual.

I was staying at the Farnsworth Inn last year and my family was in the Mcfarland room. I like to ghost hunt with video recorders and E.V.P. recorders when one night my wife and I couldn’t believe what we heard.There were confederate sharpshooters in the Farnsworth during the Battle of Gettysburg and 6 were killed there. We recorded at night and in the morning we heard on the recorder a voice saying in a whisper “Whats going on out there?” then there was a muffled sound of a what sounded like someone was going through a leather bag, followed by the sound of a tearing of some material and the pouring of sand down a metal barrel. the only thing I could think of was a musket being primed. My wife and I was shocked when we heard a loud swooshing sound and another voice ask the first ” Did you get him?” Could this have been a residual haunting of a confederate sharpshooter making a kill? TRUE STORY!!!!

I have two other stories of gettysburg I would love to share. I travel there often because my great great grandfather fought for the Union at the Peach Orchard under General Dan Sicles and I want to relate what happened to me there. I was going through the park one night and came across a group of reenactors that were camped ther for the night. The park allows reenactors to stay there and found myself enjoying they’r company so I stayed with them at Spanglers Spring and we traded stories of the battle and had some beers. Before I knew it it was 2am and tourists are not allowed in the park past 10pm. I saw a park ranger and explained why I was there so late and she said it was no problem if I left right away, which I did.However on the way back I stopped at the Peach Orchard and wanted to take some pictures before I left for the night. I got out of my car and did not park on the grass but left my car on the road and took some photos. All of a sudden on the side of the snake rail fence to my right I swore I heard a loud sound of manypeople walking through the high grass there. There was no voices or clanking just the sound of many men walking through this high grass. THERE WAS NO WIND! I came to the fence and said to myself, there are alot of people there walking by as the sound was so clear and as soon as I took some pictures, the sound stopped!! There were an abnormal number of orbs but I wondered was that the sound of a long ago regiment walking through the grass there? Was it Union or Confederate and if it was a group of Union soldiers, could grampa be among them?

I absolutely love Gettysburg for the Civil War History and the fact that it “could” be haunted. But, how does a tourist get in to some of these places like the College and the farm houses that were used as field hospitals on the Battlefield? I’ve been to the regular stops like Devil’s Den (got a huge, white orb in daylight over some boulders), and went on the Ghost Tour on Steinwehr Avenue (got colored light anomalies there at the Haunted Stream), but have never captured anything worthwhile, like an apparition nor have I heard voices. I’d prefer the non-touristy fake Ghost Tours that only show the outside of the building. Can a visitor arrange for private tours? Do you think college kids would be interested in taking some “old folks on a private tour” or is that our of the question? Thanks. Wilmington, DE

OOps. Typo. Confusion here. What I meant was, I do NOT prefer the fake, touristy Ghost Walks that only take you to the outside of the buildings. Why can’t we see the inside?

I am not a believer in ghosts or apparitions. I frequently go to Gettysburg to research for my writings on the battle. I have taken over 1,000 photo over the past years and have found 3 of them containg features that I cannot explain. At 6 a.m., I thought is would be a great oppertunity to photograph a beautiful sunrise over the National Cemetery from the Taneytown Road. When I studied the picture, there was a huge orb over a monument. I discounted this as a reflection of the sun from my camera lens. There was also a “comet” looking object that I discounted as possibly a result from the sun. What I can’t discount was the appearance of a woman in mid-1800’s period dress standing in a small opening among the trees. I took 3 photos and the woman only appeared in one photo. I walked into the cemetery and found no one in the vicinity. The was a light dew on the ground and I could see where i had walked in the wet grass, but no other footprints were to be found. I found it so odd that I donated the photo to a local establishment in Gettysburg, where they have it on display. They believe it to be the apparition of Elizabeth Thorn, who was acting as care taker for the nieghboring Evergreen Cemetery and was responsible for having buried nearly 100 dead soldiers right after the battle. As for the photo, I have no idea, nor am I concerned that I may have caught an apparition on film. I just find it courious that it appeared and disappeared in a matter of seconds, leaving behind no evidence that it was ever there asides from the image on my photo. I was however inspired to research Mrs. Thorn and her remarkable story that has become part of the civilian aspect of my writings about Gettysburg.

As I stated above, I am a historian, not a seeker of the paranormal. Another of my many photo’s taken at Gettysburg shows a misty figure of a man on horseback riding through the Lincoln Square late in the evening. My son and I had decided to go into the downtown section of the historic town when he mentioned that the lighted front of the Gettysburg Hotel would make a nice photo. I was facing north with the Will’s House to my right when I snapped the picture. Everything seemed normal for a late summer’s eve in Gettysburg. When I returned to my hotel, I downlaoded the pictures I took onto my laptop when the misty riding figure appeared in the photo. I tried to come to a logical conclusion as to what it might have originated from. There were several cars passing by in the busy circle, but what are the odds that car exhaust on a warm July night was the cause of the mist? Also, had it been exhaust, I am almost sure I would have seen it with the naked eye, which is not the case. I jus chalk it up to one of the few photos of the thousand or so I have taken, that I simply can’t explain, and nothing more. But it is intriguing since that area was swarming with cavalry soldiers on July 1-3, 1863.