Ghosts on Battlefield
Ghosts, Haunts and Gouls on The Little Bighorn Battlefield
Every so often, while working as a Park Ranger, you get to hear some great reasons why the public visits Historic Battlefield Parks. I remember one man with his two middle school aged daughters who had traveled from Nova Scotia to visit the building currently the NPS Museum in hopes of seeing some supernatural evidence of paranormal activity. I don’t know if they were successful in their quest, but on the evening of the 4th of July, 3 of us saw the upper story of that building lighted up without cause. Upon inspection by a Law Enforcement Ranger he found no reason to explain the light and casually flicked it off. The Museum was originally the Superintendents house and the basement of the same was the morgue for the National Cemetery just outside its walls.
My wife worked as a librarian in the ground floor of the Museum and often heard strange unexplainable sounds from the loft and the basement. Some persons have heard children’s voices and the creaking of bed springs as if the urchins that lived there in the past were jumping on their beds.
Visible Ghosts have been reported in the form of battle dressed Lakota Warriors usually on horseback seen on the grounds or near the Little Bighorn River near dusk. Some reports of troopers on foot or on hose back have been made to the staff of the facility.
There are four apartments for seasonal park staff on the site not far from the National Cemetery and we stayed in Apartment C. Shortly after the training was completed and we started greeting the public with our NPS version of the history of the Battle of the Greasy Grass River, the boss and a couple of the long time rangers sat me down in the breakroom at the Visitor Center and introduced me to one paranormal occurrence that happened in my apartment. The Intern, a college student, there for a summer of work, had heard of the white marble marker left along the bank of the River where Lt. Hodgson died of his bullet wounds. She asked one of her fellow workers to take her for a hike to visit the Marker and they agreed to do so tomorrow after work. That evening she was relaxing and reading, when a pale figure appeared in the easy chair across the room from her, it was ghost white pale and stared out of sightless eyes with a look of terror on its’ features. Before the intern could do or say anything the vision vanished.
After the quiet hike to the river edge to visit the monument, the fellow worker regaled the intern with the terrifying story of the retreat from the prairie dog village to the timber along the river by Reno’s troops. Lt. Hodgson was Reno’s Adjutant and was with the group when Reno lead a disorganized retreat to and across the River to find higher ground which became known as Reno Hill. But the Lieutenant did not have much fortune and was shot off his horse in the timber before reaching the River and he grabbed a stirrup offered by another mounted trooper. The horse got them both over the river but to no avail as Hodgson collected a fatal bullet as the horse pulled up on the east bank of the Little Bighorn River. Years later the white markers were placed at known killing sites for each trooper.
This brave young intern was still interested in the whole story and when back in the visitor center her friend helped her look through photos of the troopers and sure enough the face she had seen in her Apt C was that of Lt. Hodgson.
Every so often, while working as a Park Ranger, you get to hear some great reasons why the public visits Historic Battlefield Parks. I remember one man with his two middle school aged daughters who had traveled from Nova Scotia to visit the building currently the NPS Museum in hopes of seeing some supernatural evidence of paranormal activity. I don’t know if they were successful in their quest, but on the evening of the 4th of July, 3 of us saw the upper story of that building lighted up without cause. Upon inspection by a Law Enforcement Ranger he found no reason to explain the light and casually flicked it off. The Museum was originally the Superintendents house and the basement of the same was the morgue for the National Cemetery just outside its walls.
My wife worked as a librarian in the ground floor of the Museum and often heard strange unexplainable sounds from the loft and the basement. Some persons have heard children’s voices and the creaking of bed springs as if the urchins that lived there in the past were jumping on their beds.
Visible Ghosts have been reported in the form of battle dressed Lakota Warriors usually on horseback seen on the grounds or near the Little Bighorn River near dusk. Some reports of troopers on foot or on hose back have been made to the staff of the facility.
There are four apartments for seasonal park staff on the site not far from the National Cemetery and we stayed in Apartment C. Shortly after the training was completed and we started greeting the public with our NPS version of the history of the Battle of the Greasy Grass River, the boss and a couple of the long time rangers sat me down in the breakroom at the Visitor Center and introduced me to one paranormal occurrence that happened in my apartment. The Intern, a college student, there for a summer of work, had heard of the white marble marker left along the bank of the River where Lt. Hodgson died of his bullet wounds. She asked one of her fellow workers to take her for a hike to visit the Marker and they agreed to do so tomorrow after work. That evening she was relaxing and reading, when a pale figure appeared in the easy chair across the room from her, it was ghost white pale and stared out of sightless eyes with a look of terror on its’ features. Before the intern could do or say anything the vision vanished.
After the quiet hike to the river edge to visit the monument, the fellow worker regaled the intern with the terrifying story of the retreat from the prairie dog village to the timber along the river by Reno’s troops. Lt. Hodgson was Reno’s Adjutant and was with the group when Reno lead a disorganized retreat to and across the River to find higher ground which became known as Reno Hill. But the Lieutenant did not have much fortune and was shot off his horse in the timber before reaching the River and he grabbed a stirrup offered by another mounted trooper. The horse got them both over the river but to no avail as Hodgson collected a fatal bullet as the horse pulled up on the east bank of the Little Bighorn River. Years later the white markers were placed at known killing sites for each trooper.
This brave young intern was still interested in the whole story and when back in the visitor center her friend helped her look through photos of the troopers and sure enough the face she had seen in her Apt C was that of Lt. Hodgson.
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