Ghost

Several years ago my office had a training meeting in Charlottesville, VA.

Our training session last a day and a half with a half day travel time in ech direction. The training site is located at the Army Staff Judge Advocate School on the campus of the University of Virginia located about a 100 miles South West of Falls Church, VA.

I left the office about 1:30 PM and drove out highway 7 from Falls Church to highway 29 and then took highway 29 all the way to Charlottesville, VA.

This was the scenic route on a two and four lane divided highway.

I enjoyed the trip and the sites along the way. The Bull Run battlefields are adjacent to route 29 near Mannassas, VA.

I have driven this route numerous times and could swear I can hear the battle still going on as I drive by the battlefields. In some cases you are driving right through the battlefields. It is all I can do to keep my mind on driving and not watching the battlefields as I drive by and through them. The noise, the smoke, the fog and the movement that you can see out of the corner of your eye is amazing. Most of the time I know what I am seeing and hearing is just my imagination, not ghost, but there have been times that my imagination goes into over drive and I am really distracted.

Just after I drove by the Bull Run Battlefield on Wednesday, I could have sworn I saw the Union Calvary attacking a Confederate Infantry position and that I heard Artillery fire and musket fire. This sensation was so strong that it shook me and I had to pull over at one of the many battlefield-parking areas to catch my breath. As I pulled into the battlefield parking area I decided to get out of my car and walk around and catch my breath. I do not usually stop at battlefields, there are so many of them, I just drive through them on my way here and there.

As I walked up the incline from the parking lot to an observation area over looking one of the many areas of the Bull Run Battlefield, I again heard the noises of battle; the voices of men yelling and smelled musket and cannon smoke. When I got to the top of the steps I had to sit down because what I saw was so over whelming that I was lucky there was a bench there for me to sit on.

I looked out on the Bull Run Battlefield to see the Union and Confederate Armies engaged in mortal combat! I quickly looked about to see if anyone else was in the area besides me and my imagination. I quickly became aware that I was the only one watching the battle in progress in front of me.

I sat there for what seemed like a lifetime watching this battle from over a hundred plus years ago unfold in front of me. I could smell and hear all the things you would see in a real civil war battle. I knew none of this could be real and that I must be having a bad reaction to lunch and the Northern Virginia area traffic. Yet here I was and there they were.

As the battle continued, I became aware of flashes of light along the tree line coming from what looked like binocular lenses or telescopes. I then noticed non-civil war and non-ghost like people watching and filming this Civil War Battle. It was then I could make out the cameras and see people filming and watching the battle.

This was a Civil War Reenactment and not a mind meltdown or a Ghost encounter. Now I did not go out and check to see if the hundreds of people on the field were real or ghost, so who knows for sure. Wow, what a relief it was to find out I was not loosing it. I still had a training session to drive to and a brain melt down would not be a good thing at a training session.

I took a few deep breaths and a last look at the Battle of Bull Run and then headed back to my Chevy Truck to continue my trip along the Civil War Trail from Northern Virginia to Charlottesville, VA.

This trip to Charlottesville may be the most memorable of my trips in the Northern, VA area for a long time to come.