Chickamauga’s Ghost: The Legend of Old Green Eyes

The Battle of Chickamauga, which took place from September 18th through the 20th in 1863, was the second bloodiest battle in the Civil War. The South won the battle, but at such a high cost that it is known as the Death Knell of the Confederacy.

More than 34,000 men were killed, making it by far the deadliest battle in the Western Theater. Not long after, the last shot was fired, and the dead were freshly buried; tales began to form of spirits roaming the battleground.

Chickamauga’s Ghost: Old Green Eyes

Nearly all of these center around the Old Green Eyes. The stories started almost immediately after the battle. When locals and others who lived through the war started seeing glowing green eyes on the battlefield in the dead of night. 

Green Eyes is thought to be a Confederate soldier who lost his head to a cannonball.  Now, he frantically searches the battlefield at night for his dislocated body.

Eyewitness Sighting of Old Green Eyes

The late former Chief Historian of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military  Park, Edward Tinney, had this to say about a situation he witnessed in 1976 while walking a park road early one morning.

“When it passed me, I could see his hair was long like a woman’s. The eyes – I’ll never forget those eyes – they were glaring, almost greenish-orange in color, flashing like some sort of wild animal. The teeth were long and pointed like fangs. […] I didn’t know whether to run or scream or what. Then the headlights of an approaching car came blazing through the fog, and the thing disappeared right in front of me.”

Most sightings of Chickamauga’s Ghost, Old Green Eyes, are reported in the dead of the night near the Snodgrass Cabin. On those gruesome September days in 1863, the cabin witnessed an incredible amount of agony. It served as a field hospital for the Union Army, which was eventually forced to retreat. Then, the Confederate Army used it as a hospital.