Old Green Eyes – The Ghost of Chickamauga

The American Civil War was fought 150 years ago, yet people remain fascinated with its history. As it turns out, the battlefield said to be the most haunted is located right here in the South, not too far from where I live.

Chickamauga, on the border of Tennessee and Georgia, takes its name from a Native American word meaning “bloody river.” It was the second bloodiest battle of the war after Gettysburg, so the name turned out to be quite fitting.

Many ghosts, including those of a Confederate soldier and a bride-to-be pining for her lost fiancée, have been spotted at Chickamauga. But the most famous legend, “Old Green Eyes,” may not even be a traditional ghost at all. Legends surrounding the spirit go back to the Cherokee and Creek tribes who originally lived in the area. They tell of a large-bodied creature, or sometimes a floating head, with sharp fangs and glowing green eyes.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature ~ Abraham Lincoln

One version of the tale of Old Green Eyes claims that the ghost is that of a soldier who lost his head during the battle and now wanders the area looking for his body. Others have reported seeing a werewolf-like creature, including some of the park rangers who once worked at the battlefield. Sightings have been sporadic, but constant in the years following the Civil War up to the present day.

The area remains a popular draw for tourists, despite its haunted history. Rangers have had to shut down secondary roads around the park at Halloween, to deter would-be ghost hunters. One simply said, “We’ve never seen Old Green Eyes.”

Whether the spirit is a Native American legend, a Civil War casualty, a cryptid animal, or something else, has never been determined. The legend is so popular locally that Old Green Eyes has been called the “Loch Ness Monster of Georgia.”

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Chickamauga seems like a good destination for anyone looking for some paranormal sightings or a ghostly adventure. The ghost may or may not show itself, but who’s to say he isn’t real?