Miasmatic Review

Soldiers and Spooks.

For those of you that know me, know that I’m a Civil War buff. I love learning about Civil War history. I refuse to re-enact it for reasons too numerous to list right now, but I enjoy learning about it. So when I saw we were going to be driving past the Shiloh National Military Park, I decided we were going to stop and visit. It is one of the few major Civil War battlefields I had not been to.

At the museum center we saw some artifacts and a video about the battle. The video was helpful in explaining the pace or “flow” of the battle. It explained the time line and troop movements so that everyone could follow. After the museum we visited Shiloh National Cemetery, which is on the grounds of the battlefield.

I would like to take a moment to go over proper cemetery etiquette. When we were at the national cemetery, I witnessed numerous people walking over the graves of the soldiers. This is the final resting place of the fallen soldiers that gave their lives at this battle. Many of the graves contain Unknown Soldier with only a number or “Unknown” on the headstone, but they still where are heroes. Walking over their graves is just tacky. There where many brick or mowed walkways for people to be on, yet on numerous occasions I saw people just stepping over headstones and cutting over graves. Some were being loud and making inappropriate comments, “I need to find a place to sit, I’m dead tired.”

After leaving the cemetery we started our tour of the battlefield.

Here Ktreva, Boopie and Clone are standing with a cannon from Powell’s Battery, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery, Prentiss’ (6th) Division, Army of the Tennessee. (The Union named their armies based on major rivers. In this case the Tennessee River)

Before I go on I need to say that I don’t doubt the existence of the supernatural, but I need hardcore evidence. The following photos while interesting I don’t accept as proof of ghosts or other world activity. Kodak, a local camera shop and I cannot explain what happened in these photos, but there are many things that naturally could have caused something like this happening. However usually it affects the entire roll of film and not just two blocks of photos. All the photos on this page came from the same roll of film and are in the order they where taken. (Not all photos are displayed)

Where the union soldiers, and two confederates, where buried in the national cemetery, the rest of the confederates where buried in 5 mass graves. On our way between stop 2 and 3, Ktreva noticed on the map that one of the mass graves was a short walk from the road. She wanted to see it. After a hike down a hardly used trail we found the grave. I snapped a couple of photos. All had some kind of weird discoloration to it.

Confederate Grave and ???

Then I took some photos that turned out normal. One of them was the Confederate Soldier memorial.

All normal here

Next we went to the Hornet’s Nest where most of the fighting occurred on the first day. Every photo had some kind of varying anomaly to it. The below photo is of the 62 Confederate cannon that bombarded the Union at the end of the battle.

Boopie thinks it looks like the smoke of cannon fire.

After that stop we visited the largest of the Confederate mass graves. This is where I took the below picture.

Click to Enlarge

Ghost? Notice the strange discoloration

The white blur in the middle is most likely glare on the lens... through the polarized cap to prevent glare.

After leaving there we saw the Tennessee State monument to honor the soldiers that fought and died here from the great state of Tennessee. It, and every photo after, turned out normal. As I said, I can’t explain it, I don’t know how happened or why, but it is weird.

Tennessee State Memorial

We spent the rest of the time touring the battlefield, which is really well marked. I did get a little irritated after a while when I couldn’t find the Illinois State monument. They had a monument from every other state that had a soldier fight and die here. Illinois had more soldiers fighting, wounded and killed in the battle then any other state. Finally I found it. It was on a side road in the middle of a one of the battlegrounds.

Illinois State Memorial

Again I was surprised at how much the rest of the family enjoyed this trip. Boopie really got into it, asking questions about the Civil War and troop movements. We ended up having to leave the park with out getting to do everything we wanted due to it’s closing and a matter of our being very hungry. We stayed in Savannah, we discovered that the people in Savannah do not believe in restaurants that are not fast food. Or if they do, they hide them from the damn tourists!