Author's Musings on A Southern Ghost

One night, a spirit came to me from somewhere in time and space. He came to ask me to take down his story and, through his words, I learned he was from the American South and lived during the era of the Civil War.  He came during a turbulent time in my life, when I needed to make sense of my own reality.  Instinctively, I could tell he was in a great deal of emotional pain and I think this was the reason he visited me, haunted me until I wrote down what he needed to say. 

He gave me a name: Beauregard. Intuitively I knew this was a pseudonym but it was enough. His voice in my ear was charming, mesmerizing and his Southern accent so powerful, I could never read aloud his words without my voice immediately taking on the same cadence and tone. Little did I know that what he’d share with me would blast apart our otherworldly relationship, turn my love into hate then my hate into compassion. I have never known anyone in my life that exerted such power, such magnetism. And I never will again.

Excerpt from "Confessions of a Civil War Ghost"

"We decided to bivouac under a large, old oak tree. The leaves, so thick and lustrous, dipped down and afforded us a measure of fatherly protection…I’m sure it saw many battles lost and won, and I’m sure many a time a soldier waiting to have his last breath, was dragged over to rest his head against its kind support.

Someone was playing a mouth harmonium in the confines of his sleeping sack. It was slightly muffled, but the sounds still emanated true and strong. It was an old Baptist hymn and all around me each man began to pick up the threads of that tune, to sing softly at first, and as the meaning of the song became clearer, their voices rose and lifted up into the thick green folds of that kind, oak tree…The tears, hiding so long behind my eyes, fell  in an unchecked river. I had to bury myself in my blanket for fear of being seen, but oh, how good tasted those salty feelings!” (Photo from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)