In this book Tiya Miles explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of "ghost tours," frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by routinely relying on stories of enslaved black specters. But who are these ghosts? Examining popular sites and stories from these tours, Miles shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. "Dark tourism" often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. Because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these tours, Miles reveals how they continue to feed problematic "Old South" narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era. In an incisive and engaging work, Miles uses these troubling cases to shine light on how we feel about the Civil War and race, and how the ghosts of the past are still with us.

In this volume, Tally Johnson, noted folklorist and librarian, casts a light on ghost stories from one of the most pivotal periods in both American and South Carolina history: The Civil War. From Fort Sumter to the Burning of Columbia and from the Gray Man of Pawleys Island to the lesser-known tale of Florena Budwin, all sections of the state are covered in his unique style. A brief overview of both events leading to the War and of events in South Carolina during the War are also included. A lengthy bibliography is also included, covering both the ghosts and history of the period in South Carolina for further reading. Contents - Brief Overview of the Civil War in South Carolina The Upcountry Region - Springwood Cemetery: Greenville's City of the Dead - Three Bridges Road, near Powdersville - Moonville Cemetery - Wofford College - Rose Apartments (former Rose Hotel), York - Rose Hill - Newberry College: A ghost for every building (almost) - Cry Baby Bridge-over the Enoree - Andy Johnson; Didn't Stay Long, But Long Enough - Bethabara Cemetery - Glowing Stones - Sleepy Hollow - Without Ichabod Crane - Burrell Hemphill The Midlands Region - Battle of Aiken: Robert E. Less Wasn't There Then, But Now? - Oak Grove Plantation - Rivers Bridge: Things Pop Up All the Time - Is the "Queen of the Confederacy" Really Gone? - Badwell Cemetery: History, "Haunts," and a Troll - Blanding Street, Columbia - University of South Carolina - The Statehouse and Grounds Took a Licking - Hampton-Preston House, Columbia - South Carolina State Museum, Columbia - A Diary from Dixie: Courtesy of Mary Boykin Chestnut - The Bonham Family: Heroism and Service - Longstreet at the Piedmont Hotel, Gainesville, GA The PeeDee Region - Enfield, Chesterfield County - Florena Budwin and the Florence National Cemetery - Mulberry Plantation - Rectory Square Park - Woodlawn Plantation, Marion County - The Church of Holy Cross - Oakland Plantation, Sumter County - Battle of Dinkin's Mill or What the Wife Saw - Loch Dhu Plantation The Coastal Region - General Beauregard Prowls Charleston's City Hall - Battery Carriage House Inn - Folly Island and Morris Island: Cool, but Creepy - Forts Moultrie and Sumter - Mount Pleasant - Sentry on the Bohicket - Sword Gate or Mme Talvande Still Watches Over Her Girls - Trapman Street Tales - The Grey Host - Will the REAL Grey Man PLEASE Stand Up - Hagley Landing - The USS Harvest Moon in Winyah Bay - Haunts in Georgetown: The Heriot and Morgan Houses - The Battle of Honey Hill - Still Rages On - The Land's End Light - The Lucas Bay Light - Otter Island: Fort Drayton

The “First Lady of American Folklore” explores the supernatural side of the Civil War with chilling tales of spectral soldiers and haunted battlefields. Few events have sparked more legends and stories of the supernatural than America’s Civil War. The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father’s stories of the War Between the States and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood. After reading about General Joshua Chamberlain’s supernatural experience at the Battle of Gettysburg, Roberts began to collect tales of the blue and gray and write them down. In her latest collection, readers visit such famous Civil War sites as Fredericksburg, Antietam, Johnson’s Island, Andersonville, Fort Davis, Gaines Mill, Gettysburg, Fort Monroe, Harpers Ferry, Vicksburg, Richmond, Charleston, New Bern, and Petersburg. Through these stories, the readers will hear the voices of those brave individuals who lived through that dramatic era; visit with Brigadier General J. E. B. Stuart on the banks of the Chickahominy River, learn the real story about John Brown’s activities at Harpers Ferry, and watch the passing of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train. Praise for Nancy Roberts “Just about everybody likes a good ghost story. And ghost hunter/author Nancy Roberts has put together as shivery a selection of other worldly tales as you’re likely to find anywhere . . . And whether you believe in ghosts or not, these tales are guaranteed to give you a chill, especially before you go into a dark room alone.” —Southern Living

Acclaimed storyteller Nancy Roberts takes the reader on a haunted tour of coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in this engaging new collection of thirty-three ghost stories and legends. In North Carolina, we hear of the restless spirit w

From the pristine Outer Banks to the majestic Blue Mountains, North Carolina is a land of contrasts. North Carolina is home to a great number of ghosts and legends, which testify to the human experience.

Phantoms from Indian conflicts, American Revolution, and the Civil War still wander South Carolina.

A shackled West African tribe drags themselves off a slave ship while singing, drowning in a Georgia creek to avoid being sold. Mysterious letters from a long-ruined church near Mepkin Abbey solicit a man to join faith. A French teacher disappears from a school after marking final exams in blood. An Egyptian mummy triggers a heart attack in a city museum. These stories and more are wrenched from the gravest parts of America's past--real lives of people on plantations from Savannah and the coast of the Carolinas. Most deal with the hub of the East Coast slave trade, Charleston, South Carolina. All are richly illustrated with both historic and contemporary images. Dwelling in the affairs of plantation life is to tread the fires of emotionally raw history. Sifting through the folklore and legends, the old hushed embers of the south ignite once again in this collection. While these stories relate encounters with the supernatural, readers will find that what actually happened here doesn't always need a ghost to be disquieting.