Ever since I posted my vintage Yankee Doodle Spies Blog titled, “George Washington, Vampire Slayer,” I have wanted to share more Revolutionary War stories from beyond the grave. Below are more ghostly figures who continue to march (or drift) to a haunting version of the Yankee Doodle tune. Recent reports by paranormal investigators include Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVPs), which are sounds or voices recorded on electronic devices. EVP recordings often happen in environments with background noise and are interpreted as messages from the deceased. Some believe these are communications from spirits.
All these sightings are lore, passed down over the
years by visitors and caretakers who hardly believe what they see, but are
still spooked all the same.
The Anguished Angel
Built in 1716, Concord's Colonial
Inn served as a temporary hospital during the Revolutionary War, treating
wounded soldiers after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Legend connects it
to a nurse named Rosemary, a middle-aged caregiver who tended to the injured
amid the chaos of 1775. Reports describe her apparition as a spectral woman in
old-fashioned nursing attire. The anguished angel of mercy drifts silently
through dimly lit hallways, her footsteps silent but her presence chills the
air. Guests in Room 24, a corner chamber with creaking floorboards and antique
furnishings, often wake to grayish figures huddled in pain—wounded soldiers
with bandaged limbs and vacant stares, vanishing like mist when approached.
Cold spots appear unexpectedly, doors latch shut on their own, and faint
medicinal scents linger.
One account from 2018 details a
family hearing labored breaths and seeing a translucent figure checking an
empty bed before fading away. Paranormal investigators capture EVPs of whispers
like "hold on" and orbs in photos. These sightings continue, echoing
the inn's bloody past.
A Smuggler’s Spirit
Copp’s Hill Burying Ground,
established in 1659, overlooks the site of the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill,
where British artillery targeted the North End, riddling gravestones with
cannon fire. Captain Daniel Malcolm, a Sons of Liberty smuggler who evaded duties
on 60 casks of wine, lies beneath one of the most scarred markers—a winged
skull epitaph declaring him a "True Son of Liberty." His spirit,
restless from the desecration, reportedly stirs paranormal activity: strange
lights flicker like musket flashes among the crooked slate stones at dusk,
casting elongated shadows that twist unnaturally. Muffled cries echo as if from
wounded ranks, groans rise like wind through pines, and translucent figures in
tricorn hats pace the paths, halting abruptly. Visitors feel an icy grip on
their shoulders or hear gravel crunch under invisible boots.
A 2023 account describes a group
photographing the pockmarked stone when orbs swirled, accompanied by a guttural
"liberty" whisper on recordings. The hauntings peak on foggy nights,
blending colonial fury with eternal vigilance.
Sentinel Spooks
On September 6, 1781, during the
Battle of Groton Heights, 160 American defenders held Fort Griswold against 800
British raiders led by Benedict Arnold. Despite inflicting heavy losses, the
garrison faced a massacre after surrender. Lieutenant-Colonel William Ledyard
was bayoneted, and many were slain or wounded inside the redoubt. Today, the
site is a state park with the Groton Monument overlooking the Thames River, and
it’s filled with stories of restless spirits. Wounded defenders sometimes
appear beside modern picnickers on the grassy slopes—gaunt figures in bloodied
linen shirts, leaning on muskets with vacant eyes fixed on the horizon. Sudden
chills sweep through groups mid-meal, accompanied by ragged breaths and the
sound of phantom footsteps on the earthworks.
A 2025 report describes a family
seeing translucent soldiers resting against the ramparts, their groans
synchronized with the wind before vanishing. EVPs capture pleas like
"mercy" near the death hole where bodies were piled. The hauntings
grow stronger at dawn, recalling the betrayal and brutality that marked this
forgotten outpost.
A Southern Spirit
This legend is strikingly similar
to the famed “Headless Horseman.” In 1781, during a Patriot raid on Wedgefield
Plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina, British dragoons guarded the
property and some prisoners amid the chaos of the Southern Campaign—specifically,
some of the famed “Swamp Fox” Francis Marion’s men. A clash ensued when a rescue
party arrived. One sentry, beheaded by a swift sword stroke in the skirmish,
became the lore's centerpiece: "The Headless Sentry." Apologies to
Ichabod Crane!
At twilight, the sentry’s
apparition staggers across the yard—a headless torso in a tattered red coat and
riding boots, his large flintlock pistol gripped in a gloved hand, groping
blindly for his lost head. Hoofbeats thunder or chains rattle from nowhere,
building to a frenzy as he lurches toward witnesses, the ragged neck stump
oozing ethereal blood. Approachers hear guttural gurgles, feel a rush of fetid
breath, before he dissolves into mist.
The estate is now a golf course
residential community, but that has not driven away the ghost—a 2020 video from
golfers captured distorted audio of clopping hooves and a form flickering near
the clubhouse. The ghost writhers on grounds where the raid unfolded, pistol
raised in futile defense, vanishing at full dark. This tale warns of war's
dismembering toll and its effect on your handicap!
Warrior Whispers
From 1776 to 1783, British prison
hulks in Wallabout Bay held over 11,500 American captives in squalor; disease,
starvation, and abuse claimed most, their bones dumped into unmarked graves now
beneath Fort Greene Park's Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument—a 149-foot Doric
column dedicated in 1908. Lore clings to the waterfront: faint whispers of
martyred Patriots drift on breezes by the East River, spectral murmurs of
"freedom" or chained coughs blending with lapping waves. At dusk,
visitors near the monument hear ragged breaths from the crypt below, where
remains were reinterred, or glimpse emaciated shadows shuffling in fetters
along the shore. Cold fog rolls in unbidden, carrying briny rot and distant
clanks of irons.
A 2017 historical tour reported
EVPs of overlapping pleas amid the hum of traffic, tying back to the
"ghost ship" Jersey's horrors. These echoes mark the unseen
graveyard, a silent rebuke to forgotten suffering.
The Phantom Encampment
Valley Forge National Historical
Park in Pennsylvania marks the grueling winter encampment of the Continental
Army from 1777-1778, where around 2,500 soldiers died from typhus, pneumonia,
and starvation in the freezing cold, their shelters just simple log huts amid
frozen fields. Archaeological evidence shows most bodies were taken to distant
hospitals for burial, leaving the site eerily free of graves, yet the sense of
tragedy remains. Victorian-era romanticism created the legend, adding whispers
of unrest. Phantom soldiers in threadbare blue coats trudge across snowless
paths at sunset, bayonets shining under moonlit oaks, their empty footsteps
matching phantom drum rolls that unset modern nerves. Distant musket cracks
break the silence, as if volleys echo from unseen lines. On stormy nights,
ghostly campfires glow across barren hillsides—orange flickers drawing eyes to
shadows huddled for warmth, faces gaunt and frostbitten, vanishing with
thunderclaps.
Since reports began in 1895, witnesses have glimpsed a solitary sentry saluting, his tricorn hat cast in shadow. South of Route 23, near Varnum's quarters, an "JW" headstone commemorates Lieutenant John Waterman, who died on April 23, 1778. A 1901 obelisk, relocated in 1939, sparks tales of wraiths clawing from the soil, although no haunt linked to him has been proven—only legends of his vigilant shade patrolling the monument with eyes fixed on intruders.
