A ghost story from the papers of Robert Sparks Walker (1878-1960), East Tennessee writer and naturalist--

This historical ridge received its name from the Brainerd Mission which was opened in 1817 to educate and Christianize the Cherokee Indians. It was located about four miles eastward and now almost within the limits of Chattanooga.

On November 25, 1863, it became famous overnight for it being the stage for the most spectacular battle fought during the Civil War. The battle started at 3 o’clock in the afternoon the day after the Federals victory at Lookout Mountain, three miles to the west. General Grant was stationed on orchard knob a mile west of the foot of the ridge, with a line of Federal troops three miles long. General Bragg commanding the Confederates occupied a line of breastworks on the west side and on top of the Ridge for the same distance. Grant had ordered the men to advance to the foot of the Missionary Ridge, and halt for further orders. When the order was given the Federals made a rush like a troop of football players and on reaching the base of the ridge, after a pause for a few deep breaths, the Federals charged up the ridge, and in less than an hour from the time they started they had reached the summit and had won the battle. The Confederates lost 6,687 men and the Federals lost 5,815 men. Some students of history declare that this was the turning point in the Civil War and the Confederates lost the war here.

President Davis had set aside August 21, 1863 as a day of prayer for the success of the Southern confederacy. Dr. B. N. Palmer, of New Orleans, was scheduled to preach at the First Presbyterian Church then located at 7th and Market Streets in Chattanooga. The house was filled with worshippers. Just as the minister started his prayer, General John T. Wilder, Federal commander, stationed on Stringer’s Ridge about three miles away on the north side of the Tennessee River, opened fire on Chattanooga. Wilder was trying to hit the Henry Watterson’s newspaper office about two blocks north of the Presbyterian Church. This is the same Watterson who after the Civil War became a famous journalist with the Louisville-Courier Journal.

General Preston Smith, Confederate commander from Tennessee was encamped on the side of Missionary Ridge. Col. Beriah F. Moore, one of his subordinates, was also encamped on the same ridge and within sight of the old Moore home where Beriah was born and reared. The crowd carrying the wounded girl stopped the Moore residence and asked that she be taken in. Moore’s house was already filled to overflowing with refugees, and the elder Moore declined to receive the wounded girl. Preston Smith, who happened to be present, proceeded to denounce the elder Moore in the bitterest kind of language because the old man refused the wounded girl admittance. The incident was not long reaching Colonel Beriah, the elder Moore’s son who was encamped within sight of the residence. Colonel Moore was enraged over the treatment General Smith given his father, and so sent his superior officer a note branding him as a bully and a coward for speaking to his dad as Smith had done, explaining why his father was justified in declining to take the little girl in his charge.

The next morning General Smith went to Colonel Moore’s tent and apologized profoundly for his rash act. The apology was not accepted by Colonel Moore, who promptly challenged General Smith for a duel. Smith accepted, and it was with much difficulty that the duel was finally stalled by the diplomatic intervention of Colonel C. W. Heiskell of the 19th Tennessee Regiment.

A month later, Preston Smith was killed in the battle of Chickamauga. Colonel Moore received high praise for his gallantry displayed in that battle, in which the Confederates had been eminently successful. Following the battle of Chickamauga, General Bragg again retired to Missionary Ridge where his army was encamped. Col. Beriah Moore’s regiment re-encamped on the same spot where it had been a month previous. On the day of the battle of Missionary Ridge, at noon, Colonel Moore’s father walked down to his son’s headquarters. The Colonel evidently had a premonition that he would be killed in the forth-coming battle. He handed his father his watch, and every other small article he had in his possession with the request that he carry them back to home. About three hours later, Colonel Beriah Moore fell mortally wounded while commanding his regiment in sight of his home! This was near Bragg’s headquarters.

Today Missionary Ridge is one of the most beautiful residential sites to be found in the South. The west side, however is so rocky and steep that the most of it still remains in timber, just about like it was during the battle.

Not many months after I removed to Chattanooga, I settled a mile west of this famous ridge. Rumors persisted reaching my ears of a ghost which had been terrifying the people near the spot where Colonel Beriah F. Moore met death. I had listened to so many tales of ghosts that I was almost immune to their frightful behavior. By this time, I had had so much experience in solving so many phantom mysteries that I was inclined to believe that most of them were caused from persons misjudging some acts of nature, the elements or some living creations.

During the latter part of September, on a very dark evening I set a night to make an investigation with my own eyes to reveal the identity of the famous ghost of Missionary Ridge. I walked all the way from my home in twenty minutes to the historical spot. All the way, I confess, I reflected constantly on the horror of bloodshed of this battle and the sufferings and the deaths that had taken place there.

A man who had lived for a long time in the reported haunted area, gave me specific directions, but he declined to accompany me to the place. The ridge was then covered with many chestnut oaks, interspersed with persimmon, sumach, blackberry and sawbriers, I saw in advance that if I should run across the ghost which should force me into one of the briery jungles that it would be difficult for me to extricate myself. When I reached the spot where Colonel Moore was killed, I halted and reviewed in my mind the sorrowful last day that he had spent. In my reflections, I was startled by a noise that sounded like something breaking off the tops of bushes to my right. I could not conceive of the ghost of Colonel Moore or that of any other soldier who lost his life here being now engaged in snapping the tops from the shrubs. It occurred to me that any ghost that could break the bushes would also be able to crunch human bones. At times, I got up and was tempted to leave the old stump on which I was sitting. At least I did limber up my legs.

It required but one flash of my light to reveal enough of the earth about me to identify it as a part of the grounds where I had been accustomed to tramping with young people assisting them in their study of wild flowers, and incidentally, in searching for minie balls from the little ditches where the rains had left them exposed. There were yet many wild asters, goldenrods, trefoils, blazing stars and wild sweet potato still in bloom. The sight of these floral friends enabled me to dismiss temporarily the thought of ghosts. I had been so fond of searching the battlefields for minie balls and the old field for Indian arrowpoints, that despite the darkness of the hour, I found myself interested in these relics. For ten minutes I proceeded looking for them.

A sharp cracking of a small sapling forced my mind from thoughts of the present to that what happened here in 1863. The noise kept plaguing my ears, and yet there was nothing to disturb my eyes. Slowly whatever it was began moving forward. When it came into view it seemed not be more than a half hundred feet away. The first glimpse gave me sight of something which appeared to be long of stature and whitish. As it stepped about, it stood erect and looked to be about my height. Then I heard a noise that sounded like it was bending a small bush to the ground; next it bit the top out of it. Twenty feet farther up the ridge it paused a moment and did the same thing. It then started towards me, and I was not craving for its society at all. My nerves began tingling. I stepped behind a large chestnut oak. As it moved on, it missed me by ten feet. I was confident that I had could solve the mystery of this ghost, but I soon realized that I had come to a too hasty conclusion. I noticed that the ghost was walking on four feet instead of two, as I had supposed. When it was directly in front of me, it reared on its hind legs and with a forefoot bent a sapling down, bit the top out of it, and then let the thing fly up again.

The ghost was on its way up the ridge, greatly to my relief. I ventured bravely on its trail, but never moving closer to it than thirty feet. I examined one of the shrubs it had attacked, and I found all of them had their tops nipped off. Suddenly the apparition disappeared as if it had fallen into a cave. When it left as if by magic, I halted, waited and watched with low breathing. Moments seemed hours. Then as suddenly as it had disappeared, it rose as if it were part of a fog coming from the ground. I slipped behind a chestnut oak. The weird thing seemed to move so slow it taxed my patience to its limit; I was fearful that I might be kept there till daylight before it got to the top of the hill.

In another moment my feet plunged me into a hole, and I fancy I disappeared about as mysteriously as the ghost had done before me. I came to my senses in the bottom of a gully seven feet deep. When I managed to climb out of the ditch I was covered with red clay.

Each little bush I passed, there was its tops mysteriously bitten off. To my dismay, I witnessed the ghost enter a dark cranny near the top of the ridge. There it became lost for a short time. I ventured to within fifteen feet of the spot, but halted when I saw a white form raise up. There followed a strange noise as if a big tree were being uprooted, followed by a shower of rocks or grapeshot which on striking the gravels, rolled down the steep hill. Instantly, I though the ghost was setting a trap for me. With long strides I quit the ghost of Missionary Ridge. One thing however, I was sure, and that was it was not ghost of any dead soldier.

When I arrived home, my mind had been so wildly exercised that I could not go to sleep. The next morning, after a light breakfast, I once more turned my footsteps towards Missionary Ridge, determined once more to solve the mystery of the ghost. I got on the same trail I had walked a few hours before in the dark. When I examined the sumach, sassafras, persimmon, and other small shrubs, I noted their tops had been cut too smoothly to have been done by an animal’s teeth. It was the work of a sharp bladed pocket knife. I had enough sense to know that no real ghost carried knives. In another moment I stood on the bank of the deep ditch into which I had stumbled and got mixed with the red clay. But I had to laugh on the spot—I saw where the ghost had paused long enough to wallow in the bottom of the gully. Some white hairs had been left sticking to the clay.

I walked or rather slid down into it, and then climbed out. At the top of the bank, I noticed a small persimmon tree with a red apple sticking in its top! It was the work of human hands! This was the key to unlock the mystery. From the footprints left in the red clay, I saw the ghost was cloven-footed, and was a member of the swine family.

I ran as fast as I could where the phantom had been left. There stood a winesap apple tree, loaded with fruit with its arching limbs almost touching the ground. The hog had crawled under the wire fence, and from the toothprints left on the lower limbs, it had taken hold of them with its mouth and given the branches a vigorous shaking, shattering off enough fruit to satisfy its hunger.

I went back and examined some of the saplings with tops clipped off. Some shrewd person either bent on mischief, or who was testing a hog’s ability to find apples above its head, had placed one on the tip of a shrub in a row that led from the foot of Missionary Ridge to the loaded apple tree at the top. The tales of ghosts near the spot where Beriah Moore fell mortally wounded were lost after that night’s investigations!

The End

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Last Updated: December 3, 2002