All Comments on 'Haunted Spring'

I'm a bit of a history buff & this story kept me wanting more. Good job!

I just happened on here to kill a few minutes this Christmas eve. So glad I did. Well written and a really nice story. Nicely done.

Very believable characters speaking believable dialogue. Strong work!

It brought back memories. When I was younger, I worked for a apple processing company, making juice and sauce. The home office and main plant was in Winchester, Va,. and over the years, I struck up a friendship with an engineer that visited occasionally. His family had been in the area since the 1700's, and owned a large farm. He became fascinated with the Civil War, and there were many skirmishes and a few battles practically fought on his front door. Being a local, he got permission from many of the local farmers, and would prowl their woods and fields with a metal detector. He had piles of bullets, quite a few cannonballs(including twelve the local bomb squad had to removed, as they were filled with powder)belt buckles, canteens, three sabers, seven rifles and muskets, and two revolvers.

I asked him if it was legal to have these artifacts, and apparently it was. Most of the stuff he found were thrown down or lost in the heat of battle, although he did uncover the remains of a Union soldier once. Seems it was protocol in that county at the time to call the sheriff, and a team would come out, mark the spot, take pictures, and then cover the body back up. If you walk into the office of the sheriff, there is a map of the county covered with colored pins, gray for Confederates, blue for Union, and the occasional white one, when the body couldn't be identified as belonging to either side.

I still have the belt buckle he gave me.

I asked him once if he'd ever seen ghosts or felt things when he uncovered the artifacts, and he never answered me directly, but had an odd look in his eyes. He once found the site of an undocumented skirmish, and when he figured out what he had, he called in the state, who came in and documented the area. Almost two dozens pins got added to the map. It was the biggest discovery he ever made, and he refused to talk about it, a cousin told me about it when I was at the home office for training. When I asked, he just said the evidence of what happened was pretty ugly, and no, he wouldn't go into detail.

Usually places like that get a plaque, describing in as much detail what happened. This was not one of them.

I hadn't thought of him in years, and your story brought it all back.

Thanks, Q