WEBVTT - Devil's Den: Is Gettysburg Haunted?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

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<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vobam. Here in the summer of

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixty three, more than a hundred and sixty five

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<v Speaker 1>thousand Union and Confederate troops amassed in the rolling farmland

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<v Speaker 1>around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle that took

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<v Speaker 1>place over three blood soaked days, would claim more than

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<v Speaker 1>seven thousand lives and tally an astounding one hundred and

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<v Speaker 1>twelve casualties, including the dead, wounded, and missing. Although more

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<v Speaker 1>than a hundred and fifty years have passed since that

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<v Speaker 1>epic battle, the bloodiest of the Civil War and a

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<v Speaker 1>key turning point for the Union cause, the emotional imprint

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<v Speaker 1>of so much death, suffering, and mourning is hard to erase.

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<v Speaker 1>Some believe that the painful memories seared into the soil

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<v Speaker 1>and streets of Gettysburg have made it the most haunted

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<v Speaker 1>town in America. One particular battle field site is legendary

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<v Speaker 1>with ghost hunters and paranormal investigators. Known as the Devil's Den.

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<v Speaker 1>This boulder strewn maze, located between the rocky hills known

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<v Speaker 1>as Little Roundtop and Big Roundtop, was a site of

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<v Speaker 1>fierce fighting and heavy casualties and is rumored to be

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<v Speaker 1>home to several restless Confederate spirits, one of whom hates cameras.

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<v Speaker 1>The name Devil's Den predates the Civil War, though the

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<v Speaker 1>origin is uncertain. As still it's not hard to imagine

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<v Speaker 1>why the spooky moniker stuck before the article. This episode

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<v Speaker 1>is based on How's to Work. Spoke with Mark Nesbitt,

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<v Speaker 1>who worked as a park ranger in the Gettysburg National

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<v Speaker 1>Military Park before starting a second career as a paranormal

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<v Speaker 1>investigator and owner of Ghosts of Gettysburg Tours. Nesbitt says

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<v Speaker 1>that he used to get the Willie's when he had

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<v Speaker 1>to do security checks on the otherworldly landscape after dark.

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<v Speaker 1>He said, the Devil's Den looks like some giant just

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<v Speaker 1>dropped these huge boulders the size of how is down

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<v Speaker 1>onto this one spot on the battlefield. On a sunny day,

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<v Speaker 1>it's not too bad. On a cloudy day, it's kind

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<v Speaker 1>of ominous. At night, it's just ridiculous. The fighting at

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<v Speaker 1>Devil's Den was intense and dictated by the unusual topography.

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<v Speaker 1>On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg five thousand,

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<v Speaker 1>five hundred Confederate troops attacked the left flank of the

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<v Speaker 1>Union position on Little round Top, and to get there

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<v Speaker 1>they first had to take Devil's Den, where the maze

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<v Speaker 1>of boulders, many some twenty feet or six meters tall,

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<v Speaker 1>made it nearly impossible to see the enemy, and Nesbit

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<v Speaker 1>said it would have been scary. You turn a corner

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<v Speaker 1>and there's somebody with a bayonet. The turning point of

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<v Speaker 1>the battle for Devil's Den came with a siege from

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<v Speaker 1>the Confederate First Texas Regiment under the command of Major

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<v Speaker 1>General John bell Hood. The famously rag tag group of

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<v Speaker 1>soldiers faced heavy casualties. Hood himself was shot in the arm,

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<v Speaker 1>managed to silence three of the Union's four heavy artillery

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<v Speaker 1>guns and flush the remaining Union soldiers from Devil's Den.

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<v Speaker 1>Once in position, the First Texas installed sharpshooters between the

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<v Speaker 1>boulders to pick off Union officers on Little Roundtop. Casualties

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<v Speaker 1>from the fighting at Devil's Den totaled more than one

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<v Speaker 1>eight hundred for the Confederates and more than eight hundred

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<v Speaker 1>for the Union. One swampy section of open land between

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<v Speaker 1>the boulders and Little Roundtop earned the name the slaughter

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<v Speaker 1>Pen for how many soldiers from both sides were gunned

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<v Speaker 1>down in crossfire. The battle for Devil's Den is considered

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<v Speaker 1>a Confederate victory, although the South would ultimately lose the

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<v Speaker 1>larger Battle of Gettysburg the next day after the failure

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<v Speaker 1>of the infamous full frontal assault known as Pickett's Charge.

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<v Speaker 1>Gettysburg is full of ghost stories. Half of the town's

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<v Speaker 1>original four hundred buildings are still in use, including many

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<v Speaker 1>that doubled as makeshift morgues and hospitals for the tens

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<v Speaker 1>of thousands of war dead and wounded who flooded the

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<v Speaker 1>town in the days after the battle. According to residents

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<v Speaker 1>and visitors, many of these troubled souls have hung around

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<v Speaker 1>a Nesbit has chronicled hundreds of paranormal tales in his

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<v Speaker 1>multi volume Ghosts of Gettysburg book series, including several unexplained

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<v Speaker 1>encounters that occurred at Devil's Den. One young woman was

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<v Speaker 1>climbing around the boulders with a friend when she felt

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<v Speaker 1>a hand to grab her by the ankle. Reaching up

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<v Speaker 1>from a darkened fissure below was a young man in

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<v Speaker 1>a Civil War uniform. She screamed for her friend, but

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<v Speaker 1>when she looked back down the man was gone, and

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<v Speaker 1>more than one visitor to the Devil's Den has claimed

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<v Speaker 1>to meet a mysterious figure known to some as the

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<v Speaker 1>Helpful Hippie. According to Nesbitt, years ago, a woman told

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<v Speaker 1>him and his fellow park rangers that she had gotten

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<v Speaker 1>turned around during an early morning visit to the Rocks

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<v Speaker 1>when a man appeared behind her, seemingly out of nowhere

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<v Speaker 1>and pointed off the distance, saying, what you're looking for

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<v Speaker 1>is over there, and then he vanished. When Nesbitt's coworkers

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<v Speaker 1>asked what the man looked like, she described a disheveled

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<v Speaker 1>figure in a floppy hat, shoulder length hair, bare feet,

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<v Speaker 1>and ragged clothing, and Nesbitt said, us park rangers are

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<v Speaker 1>sitting there going, I can't believe she's describing exactly what

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<v Speaker 1>a Texan looked like at the Battle of Gettysburg, and

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<v Speaker 1>she wouldn't have known that as a tourist. Another woman

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<v Speaker 1>approached Nesbit at a book signing and said that she

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<v Speaker 1>had had a similar experience. Twenty years later, while exploring

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<v Speaker 1>the Devil's Then alone, a raggedy man in a floppy

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<v Speaker 1>hat suddenly appeared and pointed to her. University of Texas

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<v Speaker 1>sweatshirt first, Texas, he exclaimed, before disappearing as quickly as

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<v Speaker 1>he came. Other visitors to Devil's Den and nearby battlefield

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<v Speaker 1>sites have complained that their camera and phone batteries inexplicably

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<v Speaker 1>fail when in the area, only to start working again

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<v Speaker 1>when they leave. Nesba has a theory for the technical glitch,

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<v Speaker 1>which he himself has experienced more than once. The culprit

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<v Speaker 1>Nesbitt believes is a famous photo taken at Devil's Den

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<v Speaker 1>of a fallen Confederate soldier lying beside his sharpshooter position.

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<v Speaker 1>The well known image, it was later discovered, was staged

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<v Speaker 1>with a real corpse. Historians found a numbered sequence of

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<v Speaker 1>images featuring the same dead soldier in a different location.

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<v Speaker 1>Some enterprising Civil War photographer saw a photo op and

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<v Speaker 1>dragged this poor kid forty yards or about thirty six

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<v Speaker 1>meters to pose as a sharpshooter, and Nesbitt said, if

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<v Speaker 1>there's a disgruntled spirit in Devil's Den that has animus

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<v Speaker 1>towards photographers, it certainly would be this guy. For its part,

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<v Speaker 1>the American Battlefield Trust, which preserves historic Civil War battle sites,

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<v Speaker 1>gives little credence to Gettysburg ghost stories. It claims that

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<v Speaker 1>these ghost stories only started circulating in the nineteen nineties

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<v Speaker 1>when folks realized they could make money off of ghost

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<v Speaker 1>tours and books. In an article on their website debunking

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<v Speaker 1>myths and misconceptions surrounding Gettysburg, the American Battlefield Trust wrote

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<v Speaker 1>by all means believe what you want to believe, but

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<v Speaker 1>please know that if water gets on a camera lens,

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<v Speaker 1>it's water, not a ghostly orb. If sun shines into

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<v Speaker 1>a camera lens, it's called sunlight, not an energy sphere.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode is based on the article the Ghosts of

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<v Speaker 1>Gettysburg's Devil's Den on how st works dot com, written

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<v Speaker 1>by Dave Brous. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart

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<v Speaker 1>Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot com, and

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<v Speaker 1>it's produced by Tyler Klein. For more podcasts from my

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<v Speaker 1>heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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<v Speaker 1>wherever you listen to your favorite show.