story9

During the War Between The States, the practice of medicine was primitive. In fact, it is said that the ancient Romans knew more about medicine than Civil War doctors. This, combined with the horrible injuries inflicted by low-velocity projectiles like Minie Balls, took a terrible toll of human life. Almost half of all battlefield casualties in the Civil War died of infection from their injuries.

The problem was that wide-spread awareness that microbes caused infection was still a few years away. When whiskey was available, it was poured in the man rather than on his wound. A simple application of alcohol to a wound would have probably cut these unnecessary deaths by at least half.

During each Civil War battle, it was customary to appropriate whatever houses were nearby as field hospitals. There surgeons would place boards between saw horses for operating tables. Doctors mostly performed amputations. The rest of the wounded were laid on the floor to await their turn on the operating table, or to die.

A fine house was located on the Stones River battlefield (the battle was fought between December 1862-January 1863). It was owned by a wealthy planter who had fled with his family at the first sound of gunfire. The empty house was immediately taken over by Union forces as a hospital.

By January 1, the house was nearly bursting at the seams with wounded. It was a terrible place. Blood was everywhere. Agonized cries of wounded men echoed through the halls. When someone died of injuries, the body was taken outside to the front lawn. Before long, rows of dead soldiers awaiting burial covered nearly every inch of grass.

One soldier, his face contorted in pain, was brought into the house suffering a terrible stomach wound. In those days, abdominal wounds were almost always fatal. He was laid on his stomach on the floor to await his fate. An hour later he was dead and orderlies were called to take the body outside to join the rest. But when they lifted the soldier from the floor they were horrified to see a clear impression of his ghostly, agonized face clearly etched on the blood-smeared hardwood.

After the battle was over and the soldiers had left the field -- after the family returned to their home -- the image of the dead soldier remained on the floor. It was a terrible enough sight in itself but the house, too, was also a place of horror. Blood stains were everywhere. The family and their servants cleaned and scrubbed for days and were finally able to rid the house of most of the signs of war -- except for that image. No matter how hard the floor was scrubbed, the terrible face remained.

For a time there was talk of replacing the floor, but the ghost image -- mouth contorted in pain and eyes wide open in terror -- was in a location that would logically be covered by a carpet. The damage to his home had put the homeowner in dire financial straits. Most of the furniture was gone, used as firewood by soldiers. The structure, itself, was heavily damaged as well as the out buildings. Repair would cost a lot of time and money.

The first room to be refurnished was the dining room. A large carpet was placed in the center of the room, over the face on the floor. A new table and chairs were placed on top of that. Then work began on the other rooms.

One evening, about six months after the battle, the family was dining when, suddenly, one of the servants screamed as her silver tray laden with food crashed to the floor. There, at her feet, was the image of the dying soldier. It was coming through the rug.

The table and chairs were pulled back. The rug was removed. The face was still on the wooden floor, too. No one could live with that kind of horror. After it was found that the image was permanently embedded in the rug and could not be removed, the rug was taken into the yard and burned. Then that part of the floor containing the image was replaced and a new rug was put over the spot.

Three months later, the same thing happened. The owner tore back the rug and there was the face again -- this time firmly implanted in the newly-laid floor. He rebuilt the floor and, in another couple of months, there it was again -- that same agonized face.

Today the house still stands and the face remains. No amount of scrubbing, no amount of replacing the hardwood floor, will eradicate the the face. The present owner, as I understand it, is resolved to the anomaly in his house. Now there is a heavy sideboard over the area which, of course, looks a bit out of place. But a little displaced furniture is nothing compared to the everlasting horror that lies beneath it.