Little Round Top — phantom soldiers of Gettysburg's bloodiest hilltop

Little Round Top is a rocky hill at the southern end of the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania, where one of the most desperate fights of the Civil War took place on July 2, 1863. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine Infantry Regiment made a famous bayonet charge down the hill to repel repeated Confederate assaults, a moment widely regarded as a turning point of the battle. The hill is now one of the most haunted locations on the battlefield. Visitors have reported seeing groups of soldiers in blue uniforms moving among the rocks, sometimes appearing to be engaged in combat before vanishing. Park rangers and reenactors have described encountering a soldier who spoke to them in archaic language before dissolving into the twilight. On foggy mornings, visitors have described hearing the clash of bayonets, musket fire, and officers shouting commands. Photographs taken at Little Round Top frequently show unexplained mist formations and light anomalies. One of the most celebrated stories involves a group of reenactors during a film shoot who encountered soldiers in period-accurate uniforms who did not appear to be part of any reenactment group — they walked past silently and disappeared over the crest of the hill. The intensity of the combat and the concentration of death on this small hilltop are believed to have created one of the most powerful residual hauntings in the United States.