Wicked Wanderings

Ep. 24: Spirits of Valor Ghostly Whispers from Civil War Grounds

February 14, 2024 Jess and Hannah Season 1 Episode 24
Ep. 24: Spirits of Valor Ghostly Whispers from Civil War Grounds
Wicked Wanderings
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Wicked Wanderings
Ep. 24: Spirits of Valor Ghostly Whispers from Civil War Grounds
Feb 14, 2024 Season 1 Episode 24
Jess and Hannah

Send us a Text Message.

Ever wondered if the echoes of the past can still be heard among the living? Our latest trek through Gettysburg's storied battlefields and haunted houses might just convince you they can. We start off with a chuckle, trading tales of awkward family moments and a hilarious t-shirt gift debacle, before marching right into the heart of America's most ghost-ridden history. With the Civil War as our canvas, we paint a picture of a land soaked in both blood and spectral mysteries, where every corner tells a story of valor and the veil between worlds seems oh-so-thin.

Prepare to get the shivers as we delve into a 15-year-old girl's Civil War writings and take you through the ghost-infested halls of the Tilly Pierce House. You'll feel the hairs on your neck stand up as we recount personal experiences with lingering spirits, and you might even find yourself holding your breath during our spine-tingling visit to the orphanage turned hospital. Our ghostly narrative wouldn't be complete without the chilling tales from Reddit and the eerie whispers captured on our EVP recordings, all underscored by the haunting expertise of paranormal investigator Amy Bruni.

As we round off our spectral saga, we can't help but give a shout-out to the living souls that keep our podcast spirits high. From Rob Fitzpatrick's expert production to the atmospheric tunes that score our chilling tales, we're tipping our hats and raising a toast. Don't forget to swing by our Instagram at Wicked Wanderings Podcast for more eerie exploits, and remember, the next time you feel a chill, it might just be history whispering in your ear. Join us, if you dare, for a journey where even the bravest souls might think twice before venturing into the night alone.

www.gettysburgbattlefieldtours.com
www.Tilliepierce.com
www.Civilwarghosts.com

***Merch Store***

Support the Show.

If you'd like to show your support for Wicked Wanderings and join our community of dedicated listeners, you can start contributing for as little as $3 a month. Your support helps us continue to explore the darkest and most intriguing mysteries, bringing you captivating stories from the world of true crime and the unexplained. Click the link to become a valued member of our podcast family.

Don't forget to rate, review, and follow us on your favorite streaming platform.
Wicked Wanderings Website
Linktree
Instagram
Hannah's Bookstagram
Jess's Bookstagram

We'd love to hear from you! If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to email us @ wickedwanderingspodcast@gmail.com.

Wicked Wanderings is hosted by Hannah Fitzpatrick and Jess Goonan. It is produced and edited by Rob Fitzpatrick. Music by Sascha Ende. Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Lic.

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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Send us a Text Message.

Ever wondered if the echoes of the past can still be heard among the living? Our latest trek through Gettysburg's storied battlefields and haunted houses might just convince you they can. We start off with a chuckle, trading tales of awkward family moments and a hilarious t-shirt gift debacle, before marching right into the heart of America's most ghost-ridden history. With the Civil War as our canvas, we paint a picture of a land soaked in both blood and spectral mysteries, where every corner tells a story of valor and the veil between worlds seems oh-so-thin.

Prepare to get the shivers as we delve into a 15-year-old girl's Civil War writings and take you through the ghost-infested halls of the Tilly Pierce House. You'll feel the hairs on your neck stand up as we recount personal experiences with lingering spirits, and you might even find yourself holding your breath during our spine-tingling visit to the orphanage turned hospital. Our ghostly narrative wouldn't be complete without the chilling tales from Reddit and the eerie whispers captured on our EVP recordings, all underscored by the haunting expertise of paranormal investigator Amy Bruni.

As we round off our spectral saga, we can't help but give a shout-out to the living souls that keep our podcast spirits high. From Rob Fitzpatrick's expert production to the atmospheric tunes that score our chilling tales, we're tipping our hats and raising a toast. Don't forget to swing by our Instagram at Wicked Wanderings Podcast for more eerie exploits, and remember, the next time you feel a chill, it might just be history whispering in your ear. Join us, if you dare, for a journey where even the bravest souls might think twice before venturing into the night alone.

www.gettysburgbattlefieldtours.com
www.Tilliepierce.com
www.Civilwarghosts.com

***Merch Store***

Support the Show.

If you'd like to show your support for Wicked Wanderings and join our community of dedicated listeners, you can start contributing for as little as $3 a month. Your support helps us continue to explore the darkest and most intriguing mysteries, bringing you captivating stories from the world of true crime and the unexplained. Click the link to become a valued member of our podcast family.

Don't forget to rate, review, and follow us on your favorite streaming platform.
Wicked Wanderings Website
Linktree
Instagram
Hannah's Bookstagram
Jess's Bookstagram

We'd love to hear from you! If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to email us @ wickedwanderingspodcast@gmail.com.

Wicked Wanderings is hosted by Hannah Fitzpatrick and Jess Goonan. It is produced and edited by Rob Fitzpatrick. Music by Sascha Ende. Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Lic.

Rob:

Usually, if we have a conversation, hannah goes make sure you cut that out, and Jess will go no, no, no, no. You keep that in, you leave it in.

Hannah:

I guess I'm just worried when my mother's going to think of me. Same thing, my mom, when my mother thinks my mom doesn't listen, so that's good.

Jess:

Why doesn't your mother listen? She doesn't know how she's like.

Rob:

Well, you were out there, you could have downloaded it on my phone, my sister has, but I also swear a lot and she doesn't like swearing.

Jess:

Oh especially on Hannah's, when my real reactions are always like oh fuck.

Rob:

We can do. We can do it. I did a version. I got rid of the beep, but we can do it.

Hannah:

Oh, good the beep was annoying.

Jess:

Per Hannah's request. I could just beep, beep.

Mom:

Mom's answer.

Jess:

My mother-in-law is in New Orleans right now.

Rob:

New.

Jess:

Orleans, yeah, new Orleans.

Rob:

New.

Jess:

Orleans. This is what she sent me. Oh my God, is that a t-shirt?

Hannah:

It is, that's your mother-in-law.

Jess:

Yeah she's a riot.

Hannah:

Oh my God, she birthed your husband.

Jess:

Yes, she's a good time. Don't buy me one. Hang in there with her.

Rob:

I could never envision my mother-in-law wearing that.

Mom:

No, I could envision my mother-in-law wearing that Nice to meet. Rob, because I have a son-in-law story, we'll make it to Mary King's house Goodie.

Jess:

Yeah, my mother-in-law is amazing.

Mom:

Okay. Hello, I am Michael. And I'm Rebecca. And we are the hosts of Just Us Thinking.

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Come and join us on Tuesdays and Thursdays to have a little fun and a good laugh or two.

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We talk about all kinds of everyday things and we like to have a few laughs ourselves.

Ad:

You can find us on your favorite podcast player at Just Us Thinking, but make sure to drop that G.

Ad:

Make sure you also hit that Subscribe button and you could follow us on Facebook. Thank you for listening.

Jess:

Hello Wanderers. I'm Jess and I'm Hannah, and welcome to Wicked Wanderings. Hello Hannah, hello Jessica and hello Mom, hi, jess, hi.

Mom:

Hannah.

Jess:

Thanks for joining us again today.

Mom:

Hi, jess, get me back.

Jess:

Yeah, we love our guests and thanks for making us dinner.

Hannah:

Yes, I'm really excited about it. I am too. Homemade pizza everybody yes, not for Rob, mom, no.

Mom:

Rob doesn't like deep dish. That's not fair. You're on your own, Rob. I brought him pepperoni.

Rob:

That's all I did is pepperoni.

Mom:

Pepperoni and hamburger.

Rob:

Not fair.

Jess:

I thought you literally brought him extra pepperoni in a bag. I did. Oh, ok, that is what you were talking about.

Mom:

There was extra pepperoni, so I brought it for Rob, because he doesn't like deep dish. That's hilarious.

Rob:

I do like my pizza on the thinner side, but I will eat the deep dish tonight.

Mom:

I like my men on the thinner side.

Jess:

You take what you get. I think I like men on the thicker side. I do too. I think you know what I mean.

Mom:

Well, dad, I like them on this side of the gray. That's not what I'm referring to. Jessica, my mother's here. Sorry, mom, that's OK. There's your pants for Rob. There we go. Let's start again, all right?

Hannah:

Hello Hannah, hi Justin, I mean Jessica and hi mom, hi Jess, hi Hannah, hi mom. So I feel like the Walton's.

Jess:

Sorry, goodbye, or good night John boy.

Hannah:

Good night John boy, hey Bobby Joe, hey mom, OK done.

Jess:

So today we are going to explore the ghosts of Gettysburg. So, to understand why Gettysburg is a place of so many paranormal experiences, I'm going to do somewhat of a brief history lesson. Sorry, not sorry.

Hannah:

I mean, I feel like you have to with Gettysburg.

Jess:

I mean, we could do it as a trivia if you know your Civil War history, Hannah.

Mom:

Do you mom? No, oh, ok, I mean, I could try.

Jess:

I'm not that old but Do you know how long the Civil War went on?

Hannah:

Two years, no Three years, four. There you go. Mom got it. That was a lucky guess. I was getting married. I didn't marry that one.

Mom:

Oh, I jumped. What's his name? Anzalotti. Anzalotti's class at Winnecke.

Jess:

Yes, so the American Civil War went on between April 12, 1861 to May 26, 1865. So obviously we have some international listeners, which is awesome, hello, so obviously it was between the North and South and the North was against slavery, the South was for it. Do you know which states were included in the North?

Hannah:

You really want my?

Jess:

name or not. I mean if you know them, if not, it's not the big deal, because I didn't before Massachusetts. That's one of them Good job Pennsylvania Yep New York.

Hannah:

Yep Maine, yep Vermont, new Hampshire.

Mom:

Yep.

Hannah:

Connecticut.

Jess:

Yep Rhode Island.

Hannah:

Delaware.

Jess:

No, not Delaware, they were not in the.

Hannah:

Washington DC. That's not really a state. But Ohio, yes, missouri, Nope.

Jess:

How many more states do I need? I don't know, but it's Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Really Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, Nevada and Oregon, California.

Hannah:

I definitely would not.

Jess:

I didn't even know that they were A thing yet. Yeah, so they were considered. That's terrible. Oh, my god Right, I'm so into the revolutionary. I have a whole bookshelf dedicated to the Civil War. I just have not read it yet. So those were considered the free states, and the Confederacy included the states of Texas, arkansas, louisiana, tennessee, tennessee You're the only 10 I see Hannah Mississippi, alabama, georgia, florida, south Carolina, north Carolina and Virginia. So all the ones that I didn't mention in between the two were slave states, but they were in the north borders, so they did not want to join the Confederacy. And did I write them out? No, so sorry. Do you know when the Battle of Gettysburg was fought? Nope, and how long Wasn't it? Only like two days, three days.

Jess:

Three days You're close, you get half a point. The Battle of Gettysburg obviously in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was fought on July 1 through 3 1863. It is often described as the turning point in the war and experienced the largest number of casualties of the entire Civil War. The battle is important because it ended General Robert E Lee's advance into the northern states. The Confederate general had just had a successful battle in Virginia and began to concentrate his forces towards Gettysburg. Elements of the Union and Confederate armies first collided at Gettysburg on July 1. The low ridges to the northwest of the town were defended initially by the Union. However, the Confederates assaulted them from the northwest and north, collapsing the Union lines, sending them retreating through the streets of the town to the hills of the south. And Hannah, I know you're a visual person, Give me a moment because I brought you visuals.

Hannah:

Thanks, tess, it's like you know me.

Jess:

I do.

Hannah:

And you were the overachiever in school. I can tell.

Jess:

Not till college. That is day one of the battle.

Rob:

And if you go to our Facebook page and like it, subscribe to our Facebook page, you can see the visual.

Jess:

Yes, I will have them posted on the Facebooks and Instagrams. So I highlighted the blue, which is the Union, and I forgot on that one to highlight the Confederates, which are red in the other one. But the other solid lines were the Confederate. So what I didn't realize until I went to Gettysburg a couple of years ago is that the whole town was a battlefield, like I thought it was on. There's just a field somewhere where they know it was the whole town across the whole town. That's crazy.

Hannah:

I'm sorry, I'm just thinking about just a battle happening right by my house.

Jess:

I just that's really. Can you imagine?

Mom:

Yeah, you see the cannonball in the house.

Jess:

Yes, and I have some pictures of my own travels there that I will post, yeah, in the house. And then there's a bunch of still bullet holes that have never been fixed.

Hannah:

So how did you know about the cannonball mom? Because you went, didn't you Never been there?

Mom:

No.

Hannah:

I thought you went there with Joseph, no no, I told you I took Anselotti's class.

Mom:

Yeah, for a whole semester.

Hannah:

So what was the place you went to with Joe?

Mom:

Oh, that was Valley Forge oh. I wore a totally different.

Jess:

Gotcha, I wanted to go there, but that's pretty awesome.

Jess:

So this is day two of the battle and it's properly highlighted for you. On the second day most of both armies had assembled. In the late afternoon General Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union left flank. Intense fighting raged at Little Round Top, just towards the bottom left of your map, the wheat field, devils den and the peach orchard. On the Union's right the Confederates engaged in a full-scale assault on Colt's Hill and Cemetery Hill. However, the Union army was able to hold their lines across the battlefield, so Confederate was not able to break the Union lines. On the third day the fighting resumed on Colt's Hill and battles raged to the east and south. The main event that day was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,500 Confederates against the center line of the Union on the Cemetery Ridge, known as Pickett's Charge. The charge was met with Union rifle and artillery fire at a great loss to the Confederate army. Lee eventually led his army on a retreat back to Virginia.

Jess:

Between 46,000 and 51,000 soldiers from both armies were casualties. So casualties referred to deaths, wounds, missing and captured, not just deaths, that's good to know. So up to 51,000 soldiers in a three-day battle which was the costliest battle in US history. The Union army had 23,055 casualties, 3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded and 5,369 captured or missing in three days. The Confederate losses were a little more difficult to estimate but in recent estimations from 2005, have a total of 23,321. With 4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded and 5,830 captured or missing.

Jess:

After the battlefield, the Gettysburg area was a tragic place. Dead horses, the body of soldiers. Oh, horses, horses. Not the thousands of men lying dead, but the horses, the animals. I know, actually I'd be that same way. So the dead horses, the bodies of the soldiers and the debris of the battle littered the fields. Many of the buildings were damaged and the fences were completely gone. The air was polluted with the odor of rotting flesh oh yummy. Keep in mind this is July, not the coldest time of year. Nearly 20,000 wounded and dying soldiers occupied its public buildings and many houses. Union and Confederate hospitals clustered at many of the farms and although the armies had buried many of their dead before marching away, many bodies remained above ground and there were heavy rains on July 4th that washed open the shallow graves of others. Yikes, many Union dead were embalmed, which I don't know if you knew this little tidbit, but that's how embalming bodies came to be, because they embalmed the Union soldiers to send them back home, and that's where it started. It was the Civil War.

Hannah:

Just thought you'd like to know that little tidbit, just like in the US, because the Egyptians have been embalming for thousands of years.

Mom:

They were embalming mostly their elite and their pharaohs.

Hannah:

Right, so like in terms of like American culture.

Mom:

This is the.

Jess:

I don't know about Egypt. What these to pull the brains out through the nose? Is that the same as mummification?

Mom:

Yeah, and embalming pretty much.

Jess:

You didn't grow up with, jonathan, that's why, you helped me out, I did not, I did not.

Hannah:

Seven-year-old Jonathan talking to me about pulling the brains through the nose and the crochet hook. I'm not kidding so, jonathan, but we weren't very like a macabre family at all. No, not at all. No, no, so it makes that yes, that's a very interesting fact In the.

Jess:

United States, I guess and they were sent to their homes and the Confederate dead were buried as individuals or mass graves. After the war, many bodies were exhumed and taken home to cemeteries.

Mom:

That must have been pleasant, yeah.

Jess:

Oh my God, and people would just come and help, like the town's people would come and help. So, as you can see, there's a crazy amount of death, pain and sorrow happening in such a short time in such a small place Gettysburg really isn't that big of a town and thousands laid dead and wounded in field surrounding it was the perfect storm for paranormal activity and residual energy. There are reports from various parts of the battlefield of apparitions of phantom soldiers marching in formation, mounted on horseback, as still fighting in the battle. They are said to haunt the fields where pickets charged took place the slopes around Little Round Top, the Peach, orchard and the Wheatfield. One especially high concentration of ghostly sightings and strange experiences seemed to center on Devil's Den, which is the famous rock formation of elevated outcropping of large haphazard bowlers which served as a Confederate sniper's nest and was a site of particularly vicious fighting for much of the battle.

Hannah:

Did you watch the Kindred Spirits episode on Gettysburg? I should have Really good and I hope I'm not getting my episodes confused, but I think there was one time they went into the basement of a house where they kept a lot of the bodies once they were dead that she did a lot of EVP work with.

Jess:

Ooh, I'm gonna have to check it out now. How have I not seen that?

Hannah:

I don't know, it's so sad.

Jess:

Dim spectral. Soldiers have been spotted among the rocks. Witnesses have reported hearing unexplained battle sounds echoing among the forbidden jumble of rocks and otherwise quiet moments. So let's get into some of the haunted locations, shall we? Yay, favorite part, woohoo. One such place is the Tilly Pierce House. Matilda, or Tilly Pierce, was 15 years old at the time of the battle. She watched the Union Army march through the town and, at the urging of her family, she and some friends left to what they thought would be a safe farmhouse. How old was she? 15. Oh, I don't think I realized how young she was. Yeah, so the farmhouse they went to was the base of Little Round Top, which is where a lot of the battle ended up. During the battle, tilly provided food and water to the soldiers and assisted the surgeons near the trolley line. The Tilly Pierce House is located downtown and is now an inn that you can go stay at.

Hannah:

That's a lot, though, for a 15 year old to have to do.

Jess:

Yes, and she actually wrote a book later on in life and I just got it from the Amazons yesterday, so I haven't read it. But Interesting of her experiences on Gettysburg.

Hannah:

Yeah, that's a lot for a 15 year old girl.

Jess:

Mm-hmm Right, can you imagine 15 year olds? Yeah, like they'll. Nowadays no.

Jess:

Exactly. They freak out when they lose their Wi-Fi or their phones. Okay, lost my place, sorry. The most haunted room is the blue room said to be inhabited by soldiers who were once treated by Tilly. Their footsteps can be heard marching through the halls in the attic above. Patrolling troops have been witnessed by guests. One apparition routinely wanders up and down the stairs and guests have been scared out of their wits. This would be awesome. I say that now because it's never happened to me. Where was I? Okay, guests have been scared out of their wits upon entering their room and seeing a ghost sitting on the edge of their bed. Ghostly children have been encountered playing and vanishing right before guests' eyes, and even a ghostly cat has been seen walking about.

Jess:

I once again paid a visit to Reddit because that's my new favorite thing for paranormal stories, and one such post was from the Tilly Pierce House and one from Devil's Den, and this was posted nine years ago by a username theyseemeknitten Cute huh. Finally, I have something relevant to contribute. I stayed at the Tilly Pierce House Green Room last March, experienced constant activity through the night, including bed shaking, something, a cat maybe jumping on the bed, sounds of running footsteps in the hallway. It was never ending. Stay in the green room and you're sure to experience something. Jonathan, we have an idea for a ghost weekend.

Hannah:

We'll have to come after sleepy hallowed this year.

Jess:

Oh, yes, alright, another user posted. As far back as I can remember, I've always enjoyed learning about history, including military history. As an early teen, my dad got me a copy of the time Life's the Civil War, gettysburg that's the title and there's lots of colons. And to make it difficult for me to read, I looked through it and read it constantly. I was particularly drawn to a photo of a deceased soldier pictured at Devil's Den. I never forgot it. Fast forward about 20 years. My wife and I decide to finally visit Gettysburg on Halloween for our wedding anniversary. Interesting choice.

Jess:

How cool is that my first stop had to be Devil's Den. The Gettysburg Military Park has tons of one-way little roads, and the road towards Devil's Den had a few. We missed a turn or something and we got lost. It was approaching evening, but it was not dark. It was overcast with a little drizzle, and my wife and I were hungry, so we decided to come back the next day, and driving back into town, I pulled up to a deserted road that was also a four-way stop, and this is where we saw it Sitting at the stop sign.

Jess:

I automatically looked to make sure it was clear to drive off, and as I was about to pull away, I saw something to my left that was probably close enough to reach out and touch. There, floating mid-air, about torso height, was what looked to be a cotton button shirt that I believe was dark gray. It was torn to pieces and fluttering violently, as though hurricane winds were blowing. I don't remember sounds or smells. There was no blood and I don't recall seeing any body parts, just this shirt. My brain didn't or couldn't register what it was seeing, but I looked at this apparition for about 10 seconds and then drove off. A moment after that I turned to my wife without saying a word. She was smiling at me and asked did you see that Every word of this is true and the event actually happened? There's no mistaking what my wife and I saw, other than what it was. Isn't that interesting?

Hannah:

That is interesting. I feel like sometimes, when they're that elaborate, either they're high on something or they're telling the truth.

Jess:

Yeah, I know residual energy. It makes me wonder if that was the time of impact getting hit by a cannon and that was the Right yeah.

Hannah:

Because I think some people don't take that into account. Oh my god, it's an apparition, it's a ghost, but it could just be, like you said, the residual energy from.

Jess:

Yeah, and there's been some pretty cool videos on social media about seeing ghost figures walking by cannons and then them disappearing. Have you seen any of those?

Hannah:

No, but I think in Amy Bruni's episode on Kindred Spirits they actually tested to see if there was a ghost that traveled between the buildings and they actually got EVPs. So what she did was she was in one house and she said, okay, if this is really, you say the word Apple or whatever it was. They went back to the other building and they got the word.

Jess:

Oh no shit.

Hannah:

Yeah, I'm telling you you need to watch it. I need to watch it. That's what I'm doing tonight Also.

Jess:

Side note, I can't watch the videos that you send me on TikTok at night anymore. I'm sorry. No, don't ever be sorry. Hannah sends me like paranormal videos on TikTok and I had a crazy dream after one of them she did. I can't watch them at night anymore. I love it though.

Hannah:

Your mom's just shaking your head.

Jess:

Nope. So the last two locations we're going to talk about, I've actually been myself and I will post some photos and videos of it. The first one is the children's orphanage. It was originally a private home and during the battle it was converted to a makeshift hospital for the wounded soldiers. Its cellar was filled with bodies of the dead and dying. After the battle it was converted into the national soldiers orphanage homestead to house the children who had lost their parents in the battle. But when we were there, the tour guides were telling us that it wasn't just the children that lost their fathers. Well, that they lost their fathers, but their mothers could not support them after having their husbands killed and they had to give up their children because there was no way that they could survive without.

Hannah:

It's an interesting point to make, because that's not the only time where kids are in orphanages, and it doesn't have to do with not having a parent. Sometimes they just couldn't take care of them, because that happened in the little princess movie right, because that's reality, historically speaking, a lot of times when there is famine, or war or just real hardship.

Mom:

A lot of times mothers have a guide to put their children, like in orphanages and whorehouses and those kinds of things, because they couldn't support them and there was no way for the children to get fed.

Jess:

Even during the depression, I think some people sold their children. Don't quote me on that. But I remember hearing that.

Hannah:

That's, that's sick.

Jess:

Yeah right.

Hannah:

It's one thing. To put them in a church. Orphanage is something to sell them.

Jess:

So the orphanage was originally built with good intentions, as they usually are, just like the insane ones always is.

Jess:

And it had a promising start. But then, douche canoe, rosa J Carmichael came along and became headmistress and things took a turn for the worse. Rosa devised the horrific punishments for the children living at the orphanage, even so far as to create a dungeon in the basement what the fuck I feel like. Using the word dungeon is just like fantasizing it, because I anyway I'll get there where she chained misbehaving children to the walls and kept them locked up for days without food or water. There was also the pit, which was a small, lightless crevice in the dungeon where children were forced to stay as punishment.

Jess:

So Dave and I did a ghost tour of the orphanage, and so this was one of those tours where they like dress up and period costume and kind of act the part, and Dave was having none of it. He was sitting I mean, for all you wanderers out there, my husband's like a six to big guy and is amazing, but he doesn't like any of this stuff and he does it for me, sweetheart. It was. So she got up in the character and was like she dressed up as Rosa Carmichael in the talk and you know about how she ran the orphanage and she tried to like engage him and he would just stand there with his arms crossed and be like he wouldn't respond to any attempts.

Jess:

It was kind of funny, but there was a little presentation. When you go into the house, so you don't get to see a lot of it, you go into the room and then she talks and does her little spiel. And then you go down into the basement and they have you sit on some benches, do a little other spiel about stuff that they've experienced down there, and there are still shackles on the walls. Who, who knows if, like they say, they're the ones that were there in the time, but who knows for sure?

Hannah:

But they didn't charge you extra, like Lizzie Borden's house where you had to pay extra to see the basement.

Jess:

And take a picture of the face that was painted in there. No, this is all part of the tour.

Hannah:

I liked the Lizzie Borden house but I was like, really you're going to be extra to see the web basement Eight bucks, are you really that in need for money I'm paying way overpriced for like a coffee mug here?

Jess:

So then you get to take turns in small groups to go sit in the pit. So guess who volunteered to go and sit in the pit? Of course, of course I did.

Jess:

So I have some video I'm going to post of like being in the pit and you kind of go back and forth because it seemed like I caught some orbs but it could be dust, right, right and so. But I'll still post it because it's still kind of cool to see the pit. Yeah, absolutely yeah, but you guys will see what that one is like. So it was a cool experience just to see in here and blah, blah, blah. But I didn't feel anything there, even in the pit I didn't have any weird feelings.

Jess:

But the last one, the Jenny Wade House, is a different story. You felt it, oh yeah. So I believe I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but you guys can hear it again and it is by far my favorite ghost tour slash experience so far. But Mary Virginia, Jenny Wade, lived on Breckenridge Street in Gettysburg and they fled their home in anticipation of the coming battle. They chose to stay with Jenny's sister, georgia McClellan, which wasn't really for their own safety but more for the fact that Georgia was very pregnant and she gave birth to her baby an hour before the Confederate army arrived. Oh, God.

Jess:

So this is another situation where they moved kind of for their safety and ended up right in the middle of the battle.

Hannah:

So, granted, neither of us have birthed a child. So, mom, does that sound like something that would be a good thing to have?

Mom:

I can't even imagine giving childbirth not in a hospital, never mind when there's conditions and a war coming.

Jess:

Yeah, you can't move and imagine it would be wicked stress.

Mom:

Yes.

Jess:

Yeah. So Jenny was said to be trod to Corporal Johnston Jack Skelly, a childhood friend turned romantic partner. So Ghost Adventures actually did an episode on the Jenny Wade House and not to air anybody's business or anything but they got an EVP about her saying she was pregnant. Really yeah, but I don't know. That was from Ghost Adventures. Don't quote me on that, quote them Now. I just remembered the dream I had after the scary videos and I had to do with Ghost Adventures. Anyway, moving on, jack was wounded and captured in Winchester, a fact that Jenny would never learn.

Jess:

The Wades and McClellands did their civic duty by serving bread and water to the Union forces In the early morning of July 3rd. So the last day of the battle, jenny began to need a fresh batch of dough to feed to the soldiers. The same morning, confederate soldiers began firing on the north side of the house, which was hit with 150 bullets. One of those bullets passed through two doors and struck Jenny in the shoulder, penetrating her heart and finally coming to rest in her corset, ending her life at approximately 830 am that morning. So she was bending over. You know needing, you know how you need bread. I don't cook much but yes.

Jess:

I do know that. So that's how it went through her shoulder and then down to her heart.

Mom:

I understand what you're talking about. You want to eat in the bread, in the dough. What is she? What is she?

Hannah:

What do you do? You roll it and then you push it. I do that with Play-Doh. I work with children, everybody. I'll just play with Play-Doh randomly.

Jess:

So the soldiers carried Jenny's body to the cellar where she would stay until the end of the battle. Corporal Skelly never learned of her death. She died in captivity just one week later, on July 12th, before the news was able to reach him, and Jenny is buried near her fiancee in the Evergreen Cemetery. What I picture for them is her reuniting in the afterlife her waiting for him. I would rather think of that. Then, like both of them dying and never seeing each other again, I say bitch, where's my bread?

Hannah:

Sorry.

Jess:

Hey.

Hannah:

I'm sorry, that was very disrespectful.

Jess:

So Jenny Wade Awesome experience in my mind. So I don't imagine everybody got the experience that we did. So we went to see her at, or see the house at 10 o'clock at night and they were the tour guide was like a 19 year old girl and they were going to cancel it because she was kind of worried about like what are am I going to be alone with these two people in this house? She told us that the guy who was in charge like oh no, it's a couple, you'll be fine.

Mom:

So we go to the like there's no creepy cuffs yeah, no right. No creepy couples yeah, true.

Jess:

However, we, we aren't that creepy. So we go to the house and she's like well, do you want to do it with the lights off? And I'm like, yes, of course I do. So she was able to.

Hannah:

Well, can you verify, like, what did you want to do with the lights off?

Jess:

Like the tour of the house, like, oh OK, sorry, sorry, yeah, anyway, did you want to do the tour with the lights off, are you? Are you making a jest joke?

Hannah:

Maybe I'm going to have drinks in my water.

Jess:

I said she asked, dave didn't ask. Anyway, she asked if we wanted to do the tour with the lights off and it was cool because it was like a personalized tour. She told us more about her own paranormal experiences than like the history. Like she combined the two and there was a chair that she said that she was sitting in and she always got like touched or whatever when she sat in the specific chair. Yeah, and so we were in the kitchen and supposedly it's the same cart that she. I mean, I take this stuff with a grain of salt. I'm I'm still skeptical to some extent, but you know, I don't believe everything that was told to me, but either way, it was in the kitchen. It was in the kitchen. They were showing us the cart that she supposedly used to knead the bread and there was a staircase going upstairs that I felt somebody standing there, like you know how when there's somebody behind you, and you just know you can feel it.

Jess:

And I kept looking back and nobody was there. But I knew somebody was there. It was just a weird feeling and like someone was coming down the stairs seeing what we were doing. Can't explain it. So what happened during the battle was they didn't want to take her. The door to the cellar was on the other side of the house, so they had to take her and it was kind of a duplex. It was a duplex, it wasn't kind of a duplex, but they had to take her upstairs, knocked a hole in the wall to the duplex and then down to the other side to take her down into the cellar. And so going up the stairs, it's just this eerie feeling, like I can't explain it, it's just you could just feel the difference.

Jess:

And there were three knocks that we kept hearing, like going upstairs and granted, that could have been placed there, who knows, like by the tour company or whatnot. And so we go over to the other side and there was this bed that they used to have a chain across and she said that they don't keep the chain up anymore because it would keep coming undone, like during tours and stuff. And so then she also said there was a mirror that people have taken pictures in and that they catch images in this mirror. And so she's like if you guys want to take pictures, you know, go ahead. And so my husband's like, yeah, I feel like I better not, and I'm like I will, and so I get my camera ready and you know, when you're focusing the camera and it goes on people's faces, yeah, that square was moving in the mirror and it wouldn't focus on like a specific spot, like something was moving. It was crazy.

Jess:

And then there were some videos that I've taken that I caught some orbs like making weird movements, so it wasn't anyway. Do you do any scrying in the mirror? No, that still freaks me out. Yeah, like the whole Bloody Mary thing.

Hannah:

Oh no, the shit out of me.

Jess:

So I don't mess with mirrors, except taking pictures of them.

Hannah:

No, not the.

Jess:

Bloody. Mary. Thing. So then you go downstairs to the other side of the house.

Jess:

Completely different feeling. It felt peaceful, it felt calm and I didn't have any issues. I was like I don't know, I felt calm and I didn't have any weird vibes at all. It was so weird. So then we go into the basement and they have like more benches set up and then they have like a mannequin with a blanket to kind of show how her body was left. And one thing that they did mention was that her father was said to be haunting there. Like people have had experiences with him and we had actually he was in jail at Eastern State Penitentiary for a time and we had actually gone there like the day or two before and did a tour in Eastern State Penitentiary, which is awesome. And so we go down to the basement and me, being the I don't know what you would call me eager little weirdo that I am, I'm like we should turn off the lights because, you know, sitting in a haunted basement without the lights on is a good idea.

Jess:

So we've lasted probably like 10 seconds. But I mean, who's not used to that? Just kidding, sorry, mom, so but I did. I did do some like recordings down there while we were in the basement. Can I hear them? Yeah, rob has them cued. So you guys tell us if you hear anything.

Hannah:

Mom, you especially, because you have not heard these before. Yeah, so tell us if you hear anything.

Jess:

So these are just examples of what was going on in the basement. Go for it. So anybody in here who's in here with us?

Rob:

Mr Wade, are you here? Who's making those sounds?

Hannah:

Did you hear anything with that one mom?

Mom:

In the, towards the beginning I did hear what sounded like a low-manned voice. I couldn't tell what he was saying. I mean it was kind of like uh-huh. It was like it wasn't a word, it was like a more like uh-huh, like are you here? Uh-huh, but it was low, it sounded like a man's voice. Sir, interesting A whiskey-drinking woman, I don't know. Love it, next one, yep, hello. Is anyone in here with us?

Jess:

I definitely heard something that Mr Wade, are you here? Mr Wade, are you here with us?

Hannah:

Can we play that one again for mom so she can hear the beginning again?

Mom:

I did hear something in the beginning but it didn't sound like the same one I heard the first time.

Jess:

Yeah, it almost sounded like moaning a little bit, or like muffled.

Mom:

But it was a softer voice. It wasn't that deep-means voice.

Jess:

Yeah, and it's right before I talk.

Mom:

Right. I heard something like I don't know. We can play it again if you want, but I don't know what they're saying Hello. Is anyone in here with us? There's whisper. Oh my gosh, that's creepy.

Hannah:

So it sounded like Like what do you want me to do? Like you keep asking these questions what do you want me to do? And then the other one. To me it sounded like it's so dark.

Mom:

Yeah, it's dark in here, but I heard them say it's us.

Hannah:

Ooh, okay, this is why you have different people listen to it. Yes. All right the last one and the Sorry, do you hurt-? Was that the first or the second voice you heard?

Mom:

On that one. I only heard a voice from the beginning, and it was it's us.

Hannah:

Ooh, okay, I'm sorry. Can we listen to the beginning one more time? I'm sorry. Hello, is anyone in here with us?

Jess:

It's so dark. That's the it's so dark in here. Mr Wade, are you here?

Hannah:

See, then I thought I heard something else Interesting.

Jess:

This is the third one. We'll see if we hear anything. Who's down here. So when we were in the basement there were the three knockings again.

Hannah:

Is that one of the?

Jess:

knocks in the I don't I honestly don't remember. In the first one where I asked were you making those noises? That, I think, was what we were hearing. Interesting, yeah. And then, when we turned out the lights, dave said that he and the tour guide said that they saw a figure in the corner of the room, but I didn't see it.

Hannah:

Interesting. Yeah, but I like Mom's perspective that you're like you thought. They said it's us. So was it her and her dad? Yeah, you know, maybe Water is not what you hear. Yeah, who cares?

Rob:

So I'll jump in here and that second one. I definitely hear someone faintly say it's very dark in here.

Jess:

Yeah, they're probably like what the fuck is this called? Why are we standing in the dark? Why are we sitting in?

Hannah:

the dark, you guys are electricity now.

Jess:

And so it was a really cool experience, yeah. And then we left and as I was walking out, I forgot to say you can't follow me home, so I did as we were walking out of the parking lot, because you never know. And then I tried to take some pictures at night in the cemetery to see if I caught any but any like figures or anything. But I didn't. That's awesome.

Hannah:

The EVPs are fun though.

Jess:

So whenever we go to our haunted excursions?

Hannah:

Yes, Jonathan needs to add it to the list. Yes, we can go.

Jess:

Well, wherever we go, you know I'll be recording shit. Yes, yeah, so that is the ghosts of Gettysburg and that's just a little touch of what is there. Like the farnsworth in, we also the Dobbin House, I believe, is haunted and it's a restaurant and you go and eat in the. You can eat in the basement and it's lit by candlelight. What was that?

Hannah:

What was that? It was me being clumsy, no.

Jess:

OK, you can eat in the basement by candlelight. There's no electricity and it's really cool. But so if you're a history buff or a paranormal buff, definitely Let me check out Gettysburg. Thank you, Jess.

Hannah:

You're welcome, thank you, jess Bye. Wanderers Bye. Thanks for listening today. The show wouldn't be possible without our amazing producer and editor, Rob Fitzpatrick, who works tirelessly behind the scenes to bring you the best content.

Jess:

And a special thanks to Tyga Soundprod for providing the captivating intro music. Cinematic intro 24.

Hannah:

And of course, we can't forget the hauntingly beautiful outro music, Rhino's Theme, composed by Kevin MacLeod.

Jess:

If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platforms like Spotify, apple and YouTube. Your feedback means the world to us.

Hannah:

Also be sure to follow us on Instagram for behind the scenes glimpses, updates and more thrilling content. You can find us at Wicked Wanderings Podcast.

Jess:

Thank you so much for listening and being part of our Wicked Wanderings community.

Hannah:

We appreciate each and every one of you Stay curious, keep exploring and always remember to keep on wandering.

Ghosts of Gettysburg
Ghostly Experiences and Historical Fascination
Haunted Orphanage and Jenny Wade House
Ghosts of Gettysburg and Paranormal Experiences
Acknowledgements and Call to Action

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