Iverson's Pits

On July 1, 1863, nearly 1,400 Confederate soldiers from one North Carolina brigade were cut down in minutes after walking into Union positions without scouts. Most were buried where they fell, in mass grave trenches that left sunken rows in the earth for years.

Iverson's Pits is the oldest reportedly haunted location on the Gettysburg battlefield, with documented supernatural events dating back to the 19th century. On July 1, 1863, nearly an entire North Carolina brigade was cut down in minutes on what was then John Forney's farm -- one of the most brutal and ignominious episodes of the Civil War.

The brigade, consisting of the 5th, 12th, 20th, and 23rd North Carolina Infantry regiments, was formed into lines and ordered to advance toward Oak Ridge. Their commander, Brigadier General Alfred Iverson, either through overconfidence or incompetence, failed to deploy scouts to prevent an ambush. As the unsuspecting North Carolinians advanced, a line of Federal troops concealed behind a stone wall suddenly rose and poured volley after volley of musket fire into their ranks at almost point-blank range. Within minutes, more than 900 men lay dying in the grass, shot down in straight lines just as they had marched.

The bodies were buried in mass graves right where they fell. For years afterward, the farmer who owned the land said that Iverson's Pits grew the tallest wheat in the entire field -- fertilized by the blood of the fallen. Beginning in 1871, Southern women's memorial associations raised funds to exhume the dead and return them to North Carolina, but locals insisted that not all the bodies were recovered. The idea that some of Iverson's men might still lie in unmarked graves only fed the area's haunted reputation.

For decades after the battle, the property owner claimed his farmhands, terrorized by ghostly encounters, refused to remain anywhere near the vicinity after sunset. Visitors today report hazy figures of soldiers in tattered gray walking among the trees, sudden orbs of light drifting along the old trench lines, phantom rifle volleys, and anguished moans carried on the breeze. Many who venture here after dark feel a sharp chill or the unsettling sense of being watched by hundreds of eyes.

Ghost tour groups frequently visit the site at night, weaving the tale of the ill-fated brigade with accounts of ghostly encounters that have been reported here for over 160 years.