THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 30, 1995 TAG: 9510300067
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Across a foggy southern Virginia field on an April morning, the remnants of the Confederate army of Gen. Robert E. Lee made a final retreat toward Appomattox.
The year was 1925, not 1865, and the old farmer who witnessed the march swore he never heard a sound, says the author of a new book on Virginia ghost stories.
The farmer's sighting is recounted in Williamsburg author L.B. Taylor Jr.'s latest book, ``Civil War Ghosts of Virginia.'' The book was released in October, just in time for the Halloween season.
Taylor, author of several books on Virginia ghost stories, was working on another volume when he realized he had collected enough material with a Civil War theme to do a separate book.
``It's unbelievable what people come up with,'' he said. ``After every talk I give, somebody has an experience to share with me. I keep thinking I've exhausted the supply, but it keeps replenishing.''
According to Taylor, a museum official told him about a visit to his grandfather's Nottoway County farm as a boy in the 1950s. An elderly neighbor who was known for his veracity began talking about something he saw in April 1925.
The farmer was out in the field about dawn when a lone rider appeared on a horse. But the rider, wearing a Confederate uniform, and the horse didn't make a sound, not even the clump of hooves.
Despite being nervous, the farmer walked over to a nearby ridge. Just beyond it, he saw thousands of soldiers marching in retreat, exactly 60 years after Lee's Army had passed that way en route to Appomattox.
``I knowed what it was when I saw it,'' the farmer supposedly said. ``It was the passing of the dead.''
Another story in Taylor's book involves the young son of Jefferson Davis.
In April 1864, the 5-year-old boy was playing on a veranda at the Confederate president's home in Richmond when he fell off. He died within a few hours.
When the war ended a year later, Davis left Richmond. But numerous witnesses said the apparition of a small boy began appearing at the house each year thereafter, crying, ``He's gone, he's gone.''
Davis died in 1889 and was buried in New Orleans. But four years later, his remains were moved to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond and buried next to his son.
``Once that took place, the apparition was never viewed again,'' Taylor said. by CNB