Stone Bridge at Chickamauga

A key crossing point during the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, this stone bridge saw some of the heaviest fighting of the two-day engagement. It's still standing — a silent witness to what happened there.

The Stone Bridge at Chickamauga spans one of the most blood-soaked landscapes of the Civil War. The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 19-20, 1863, was the second bloodiest engagement of the entire war, surpassed only by Gettysburg. In just two days of fighting in the dense woods and fields of northwestern Georgia near the Tennessee border, approximately 35,000 men became casualties. Many of the Union dead were left lying in the fields for weeks before being buried in hastily dug, unmarked graves -- graves that the surrounding parkland still conceals.

The bridge and its vicinity are part of the larger Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, and the reports from here have made it one of the most haunted battlefields in America. The most famous entity is Old Green Eyes, a legendary creature whose sightings predate the Civil War itself. Descriptions vary wildly: some witnesses describe a Confederate soldier searching for his head, which was taken by a cannonball. Others describe something far less human -- a tall figure with a hairy body, fang-like teeth, and glowing green-orange eyes that walks upright on two legs and wears a long dark cloak.

In the 1970s, the legend of Old Green Eyes saw a massive resurgence when park rangers and local residents reported close-range encounters with the creature. Park historian Edward Tinney described encountering a tall man in a long black duster with long black hair and eyes that were 'glaring, almost greenish-orange in color, flashing like some sort of wild animal.' When a car's headlights struck the figure, it vanished instantly.

The Lady in White is another frequently reported spirit, believed to be a woman searching for her husband among the dead. Witnesses say she first appears as a bright light before materializing into a full-body ghost, usually between sunset and midnight. She's most often spotted near Brotherton Cabin, where some of the heaviest fighting occurred.

Beyond these named entities, visitors to the Stone Bridge and surrounding battlefield report hearing the sounds of gunfire, cannon blasts, and agonized screams that carry across the fields on still nights. Ghostly soldiers have been seen moving through the tree lines, and some visitors have captured figures in photographs they can't explain. The temperature drops sharply over areas where the fighting was fiercest, and an oppressive atmosphere of sorrow permeates the grounds, particularly at dusk when the light fades and the battlefield takes on the character it must have had on those September nights in 1863 when thousands of wounded men lay calling for help in the darkness.