Circa 1862. Corporal Alva Griest posed for this photo, presumably as a keepsake for his family. Within a year he would be dead under extraordinary circumstances and his name would be inextricably linked with a mystery historians have yet to solve.
Circa 1861. Studio portrait of Ranger Arnold Simonon, cavalry officer for the Confederacy. A mass murderer and the 19th century’s closest answer to a modern terrorist. Papers which have recently come to light suggest Simonon may have been connected to a shocking series of murders and other events in Virginia just prior to the Battle of Gettysburg.
1862, Northern Virginia, near Gum Spring. Twelve bodies were found by Confederate troops in this field. They were in varying states of decay, indicating they had not all been killed at the same time, but all were completely drained of blood and their bodies arranged in haphazard rows. The bodies belonged to poor farmers and slaves but very few identifications were possible due to advanced decomposition. Authorities investigated but found no clues as to who killed them, or why.
The Tyson Plantation at Gum Spring, Virginia, circa 1860. Union troops discovered the house abandoned in 1863 while en route to Gettysburg. Moldering food was found on the kitchen table and a fire had burned out of control in the main hearth, suggesting that the family abandoned the house—or were removed from it—in great haste. Junius Tyson, his wife and children were never found, but one unreliable eyewitness said it was “devils” who took the family, not Union soldiers, devils described as having “no faces and cackling like wicked children.
1863, Gum Spring, Virginia. The burned ruin of the Chess Plantation is shown, surrounded by members of the 3rd Maine Volunteer regiment. Colonel William Pittenger is also present, seen here talking with the troops.
1863, Gum Spring, Virginia. African American troops were detailed with burying an unknown number of skeletal remains. The remains were said to have decayed with surprising speed and by the time they were interred little remained of them but bare bones. No explanation was provided. The graves were left unmarked and the exact whereabouts of the burial site are unknown.
1863. Following the destruction of the Chess Plantation in Gum Spring, Virginia, numerous items were recovered from the ruins. Shown here are several unidentified bodies, as well as two coffins, one a plain pine box and the other quite ornate. The eventual disposition of the coffins is unknown.
1863, Field Headquarters of General Hooker. Colonel William Pittenger was seen entering and leaving this building frequently in the weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg. On several occasions, always at night, he was seen to be removing wagons full of coffins. Guards posted at the Headquarters were sworn to secrecy about what happened there, even after the war.
1863, Gum Spring, Virginia. This enigmatic image has baffled generations of researchers. Clearly the bones belong to a man who has been hanged, yet the remains are in a state of considerable deterioration—while the noose looks brand new. The picture was taken immediately after the Chess Plantation in Gum Spring was burned to the ground. I admit I can’t make any sense of it but the image has always haunted me.
1863, Pipe Creek, Maryland. This boxcar with boarded-over windows was requisitioned by Colonel William Pittenger under a secret order from the War Department that was declassified fifty years after the war. Even after it was made public the order was frustrating in its brevity, saying the car was needed for a “special project for the purpose of spreading anguish and fright among the enemy.” The order was unsigned.
1863, Philadelphia. Two members of the Philadelphia College of Physicians and an unidentified laborer stand by the coffin of an unidentified man. The remains were brought from Virginia, directly from the Chess Plantation. It is unknown if the body here was congenitally deformed or if its strange appearance was a result of the violence of the man’s demise