Skip to main content

Ol' Green Eyes


Remember the Tower Door post, where I shared the story of a young man forever injured after leaping from the tower in fright? Recall I said the possible cause of fright would be discussed later. Well, take a seat, get comfy, and buckle up, because the time has come.

The Battlefield has no small number of ghost stories, the most famous of which is Ol' Green Eyes, a phantom/phenomenon that I have personally witnessed. But who or what is Ol' Green Eyes? That is a question that has many answers.

As a child, I first heard that it was the ghost of a young woman whose beloved was a soldier killed in battle; her spirit was said to wander the battlefield looking for the body of her love. This, however, isn't Ol' Green Eyes, but The Lady In White, an altogether different apparition seen in the park (remember, no small number of ghost stories).

The more common theory is that Ol' Green Eyes is the spirit of a soldier, some say Union, some say Confederate, who was slain in battle by a cannonball which left only the poor man's head. The eyes, they say, glow green as the head searches the battlefield for the shattered body.

Lastly, Ol' Green Eyes is thought to be a Cherokee spirit that existed long before that dreadful September of 1863. In fact, there are accounts of the eyes being seen moving among the bodies fallen on Snodgrass Hill during the night of the three day battle. This makes sense to me, although it is a less romantic origin tale. This is ancient land, and "Chickamauga" is said to be a Lower Cherokee term for "river of death." It is said the creeks in the area ran red with blood after the carnage ended, and what elemental spirit wouldn't be drawn to that? Coincidentally, I saw the apparition in a field near Snodgrass Hill , a place where many such sightings are said to occur.

So, what are we to make of the phenomenon? Is it something from the metaphysical realm with no explanation, or could it be a mass hallucination that extends for multiple generations? Where does one turn for evidence of such a creature?

For me, it was a left turn onto Highway 27 South for a drive through a silent battlefield, toward a town named after the River of Death, on a summer night in the mid-1990s.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building a FOSS Writing Platform

 I've taken a few steps toward resuming writing. I've written off and on over the years and now feels like a good time to get a few pieces started, maybe even finished. I have a long habit of starting more than I finish. As a Free/Open Source Software ( FOSS ) enthusiast, I plan to build my workflow exclusively around such software. The Linux operating system will be the platform; I have a strong preference for Linux Mint . Mint is a stable, conservative sort of operating system, an Ubuntu derivative that surpasses its foundation. This would provide an enterprise-grade platform for my writing and small publishing firm (more on this later). As mentioned, I want my writing and publishing to be done on a FOSS platform. I've used Ubuntu Linux for some time and find it works well, but their parent company, Canonical, appears to be drifting toward centralization, while the Snap application packaging is proprietary software, which is the opposite of FOSS. Canonical isn't a pu...
Post a Comment
Read more

In Memorium: Mitch

Author's note. I've reached the age where friends and loved ones pass with greater frequency. This is my attempt to memorialize those who have gone before, the first in a series dedicated to absent friends. These are people I love and respect, whose stories deserve to be told. Mitch I met Mitch my junior year in high school. He'd transferred from a nearby school and was a year younger than I. This was a fortunate move for me, as both of my closest friends had moved out of state over the summer and I was feeling a bit lost. Marijuana and rock music solidified the friendship, and soon we were hanging out alot with the mutual friends. Our group of friends were stoners and lived the stoner lifestyle, getting high, watching too much TV, living on junk food. We’d tell the same jokes repeatedly, laugh like we’d never heard it before, only for one of us to tell it again soon after and repeat the cycle. It was like a scene in Philip K Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly,” when Bob Arctor ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How To Beat A Billionaire - Updated

If you've spent any time at all on this site, you will have noticed I have an interest in investing. I had no interest in finance until my mid-40s, when I took a job at a printing company in which one of the partners is a CPA. I learned personal finance the hard way, struggling with credit card debt in my early 20s (it was the 90s; I blame the guitar and camera stores). After digging myself out of the hole I was in by age 27, I was cautious to avoid debt anytime I could. Investing, aside from employer retirement plans, was not on my radar. Fatherhood really spurred me into action when it came to investing. There's simply no way a savings account can outpace inflation; if you want to thrive financially, investing is the best way to get ahead. So, with encouragement from my boss, I began to study and learn. Investopedia and The Balance proved to be immensely helpful. In time, I opened an account and started buying exchange traded funds (ETFs) and was on my way. I read a few...
Post a Comment
Read more