At dinner tonight, my coworker’s wife, Jan, mentioned she was visiting a Civil War reenactment and felt a deep connection to those who died there. Encountering ghosts at Civil War sites is pretty cliché’ – I mean, it’s understandable and probably super common in real life, but for telling ghost stories it’s about as original as “It was a dark and stormy night…” Unless…
Shannon couldn’t care less about the Civil War. That’s not true – as a history buff, she found it very interesting, especially the ramifications that continue to ripple out today. But as far actual battle logistics and who died here and what line was broken there? About this, she couldn’t have cared less.
But her husband, Ethan, did care. A lot. Enough that when he tagged along on her business trip to Richmond, he practically begged her to drive the forty minutes to the Civil War reenactment of the Battle of Five Forks that weekend at the Petersburg National Battlefield. He finally won her over by explaining that seeing a real Civil War Reenactment rated high on his Bucket List, and she couldn’t reasonably argue about a Bucket List item that was a measly forty-minute drive, even if she’d rather watch proverbial paint dry.
When they arrived, Ethan was oohing and ah-ing at the actors in the parking lot in their allegedly authentic uniforms and the pounds of kit including real pointy-looking bayonets. Shannon lasted about fifteen minutes before the fandom of this quirky obsession overwhelmed her sense of patrimonial duties and she decided to follow a hiking trail that deliberately led away from The Battle of Five Forks.
The fog drifted low as she moved away from the gathering crowds, the crowns of the loblolly and Virginia pines all but invisible in the morning gloom. As the studied the bright green sheen of a holly bush just off the trail, she heard a rustling in the bushes. She froze. The rustling grew in intensity and she quickly ran through what animals she knew in this part of country. Did mountain lions live out here? Do they call them pumas? The rustling grew louder and she started going through her ideas of cryptids – are there Bigfoot in Virginia? Mothman?
A man emerged from the bushes wearing a gray, loose-fitting, button-front shirt, high-waisted trousers with suspenders that clearly came from the time of the Civil War. Her fear disappeared when she figured it was just another Civil War buff probably relieving himself in the foliage. She rolled her eyes and started off down the trail.
“Excuse me,” he called. “Can I ask you a question?”
“It’s back along this trail, probably ten, fifteen minutes,” she responded without turning around.
“What is?”
“The reenactment.”
“The what?”
She stopped and looked at him, confusion evident on his face. “The reenactment? The Battle of Five Finger Death Punch – no, that’s a metal band…” She shook her head, “I don’t remember, the Civil War battle.”
He tilted his head quizzically. “The battle? It’s over?”
“Yeah, yeah, stay in character, whatever. It’s back that way,” she started off again.
“What year is it?” he asked as she kept moving.
“2024,” she said without stopping.
“I’ll be bound,” she heard him exclaim. “I missed it.”
She stopped, and immediately sighed in frustration of herself for indulging this guy. She turned around and walked towards him. “What are you talking about? People are still arriving. You’ve got like,” she looked at her watch. “Like an hour before it starts.”
“What is that?”
“What?”
“On your wrist?”
“A watch.”
“Okay, why is it shaped like that? And is that a picture?”
She sighed heavily. “It’s an Apple Watch. Look, drop the act already.”
“I don’t know what you’re going on about, but it sounds like I missed the battle. Dag nabbit…”
It was something about his demeanor, his tone… she… believed him.
“You’re dead?”
“I am.”
“You died at the battle?”
“Well, yes…”
The verbal elipses at the end of “yes…” in his answer set off her inner sleuth. “There’s more to this. What’s your story? Why were you here? Which side did you fight for?”
“I wasn’t part of either army,” he said. “I was here for a special purpose.”
More academic alarm bells went off in her head and she needed more answers.
“Special purpose? That’s intriguing. What’s your name?”
“Me? Jubal Dorsey. Why?”
“What were you doing here?”
His face registered that he figured out how interested Shannon had become. Just then the footfalls and heavy breathing of a jogger broke the morning stillness. Jubal’s head snapped towards the noise about to emerge around the bend in the trail. “Look, whatever you do, do not look into my death.”
“Why? It’s something important, isn’t it? Key to the battle? Did your death cost the Confederacy the battle?”
Jubal faded to nothing as a Lululemon-clad woman charged down the path. She gave Shannon a funny look, but from her AirPods and pace, she clearly wasn’t interested in what this woman was doing staring off trail.
But Shannon couldn’t let it go.
She wandered back to the battlefield and Googled Jubal Dorsey as soon as she found a spot with a single bar of coverage. Nothing. She tried looking into registries of Civil War dead, but the signal wasn’t strong enough.
“Hey honey! How was your hike?”
“Good, good,” she said distractedly as she searched.
They flew home the next day, but Shannon quickly found herself obsessed with the question of who was Jubal Dorsey. He wasn’t in the National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database. He wasn’t in the Fold3 military records database. She found Dorseys, but not Jubal Dorsey.
A few months later she had a conference in Philadelphia where she rented a car and drove the four hours back to the Petersburg National Battlefield to look for Jubal Dorsey. He didn’t materialize. But while she was there she searched records at the local library where she found her first clue: microfiche birth records of Jubal Percival Dorsey from March 23, 1840. No marriage records in the nearby churches – she checked the Methodist, Baptist, even inquired with the Quakers.
She started voraciously reading accounts from soldiers and civilians at the battle, and even around the battle and nearby battles. Months went by and she was convinced she was becoming the foremost expert on the Battle of Five Forks. While searching for clues online, she repeatedly found herself correcting “experts” in the comments and found herself imminently pleased when they tried to shut her down and she came with the receipts – if she was going to find Jubal Dorsey, she would master every document she could find.
More time passed and she registered again for the conference in Richmond. She asked Ethan if he wanted to go to the reenactment again, but he said, “Nah. I crossed that off the Bucket List.”
For some reason, this incensed her and she said, “Fine, I’ll go alone.” Leaving him staring dumbfounded at her wondering when she became interested in Civil War reenactments.
She hit pay dirt just weeks from her trip when she found the account of Corporal Silas McCord in an antiquarian bookshop in Alexandira, Virginia while visiting a friend in Washington DC. She combed through the handwritten text with cotton gloves:
“The Yanks hit us hard, and we were driven back through the trees, the smoke thick as tar in the air. I shouted for the men to fall back, my legs moving before my mind caught up with the order. We were stumbling over roots, tripping on each other in the chaos. My heart pounded like the war drums had shifted to my chest.
In the madness, I nearly tripped over a figure – not the first time, as my fellow countrymen lay strewn dead around us that day. But it was the face that stopped me. Jubal Dorsey, my dear friend, lay dead at my feet. He should have been home in Nelson County, not dead here at the Five Forks. Despite the mortal danger, I crouched down and took my friend in my arms. That’s when I noticed…”
“Son of a bitch,” Shannon said flatly.
She stewed on the plane. She paid no attention during her conference, going through the rote motions. Finally, she drove down to Petersburg National Battlefield early Saturday morning. She parked and walked past the reenactors and down the trail she had taken a year ago. She stood in front of the bush where she had had her encounter.
“Jubal Dorsey, get your ass out here,” she called.
Nothing at first, then the bushes rustled, and Jubal Dorsey emerged looking a little sheepish.
“I have searched for a year… I’ve combed databases, census records, library collections, countless miles of microfiche…”
“Micro-what?” he asked.
“Don’t interrupt me!” she yelled and he flinched. “Church records, death certificates… I’ve paid hundreds of dollars for obscure texts and recounts of the Civil War. I’ve deciphered shitty handwriting and do you know what I’ve found?”
“Nothing?” he asked hopefully.
Shannon’s smile grew predatory. “No, not nothing. I found Silas McCord’s journal.”
“Goddamn it, I didn’t know he survived the war, much less wrote anything down…”
“He found you. He turned you over and discovered you died…”
“Choking on a piece of salt pork. There! Are you disappointed now?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, advancing towards him through the brambles. “I’m disappointed…”
“I told you not to look into it. I knew you’d be disappointed,” he stepped backwards as she moved towards him. “I mean, I didn’t think you’d actually find anything, but…”
“I’m more than just disappointed… I’m going to kill you a second time!” She ran at him. Jubal Dorsey turned and ran for his death.
In the midst of reenacting the critical moment of the Confederate line breaking under the Union assault on the left flank, the actors halted as a woman screaming obscenities sprinted through the battlefield.
