History and Ghost Stories: Is Franklin Tennessee's Most Haunted Town?

By Michelle Shocklee

I suppose if one is going to discuss the subject of ghosts, October is a good month to do it in. However, I'm going to put a little disclaimer right here at the beginning of this post: The information I'm about to share comes from various sources and is really interesting! But...I'm not saying I believe all of it.

Are you still with me? Okay!

The history of the small town of Franklin, Tennessee is rich with tales of ghosts and haunted houses. You can't swing a cat, as the saying goes, without hitting an historical home or business that is supposedly haunted. I thought I'd highlight a few here, give you the history of each location, and share why people believe it's haunted and by whom.

Carnton Plantation; photo Carnton Plantation

Carnton Plantation

I blogged about Carnton back in April 2018 as part of my obsession with plantation houses. It's a beautiful Federal-style home that was quite a large plantation in its day. Carnton is most famous for the role it played in the aftermath of the Battle of Franklin in November 1864. Because of its location south of town, it served as a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. The largest Confederate cemetery in the South is located on land donated by the McGavock family. The ghosts of soldiers have supposedly been seen walking through the fields, and one of the five Confederate generals who died in the battle and was laid out on the porch, has been spotted riding a horse through the former battlefield. A man and woman dressed in clothes from the 1860s are said to appear on the porch, long after the plantation house has been closed to visitors. Two years ago we visited Carnton on the anniversary of the battle. I didn't see any ghosts, but I admit it was a little creepy walking around the dimly lit house and seeing blood stains that still remain on the floor all these years later. One can't help but conjure ghastly images of amputations and horrific surgeries taking place in the upstairs bedrooms. Sadly, nearly 10,000 casualties resulted from the ill-fated battle.

Carter House

Carter House;
photos from Wikipedia

Like Carnton, the home the Carter family lived in was used during the battle. However, it was the Union Army who took possession of the one-and-a-half story home the afternoon of November 30, 1864. Located one mile north of Carnton, some of the fiercest fighting took place on the Carter's property. Their son, Tod, an aide to a Confederate general, was mortally wounded within sight of his childhood home. They carried his body inside where he died two days later. It is said that Tod and his sister Annie continue to reside in the home, nearly 155 years later. When we visited the Carter house (again, on the anniversary of the battle) we didn't see Tod.


The Lotz House

The Lotz family lived across Columbia Pike from the Carters. When it became clear the war had arrived in their front yard, Mr. Lotz, with his wife and children, took refuge in the Carter home because it was made of brick. Like Carnton, the Lotz home still bears the blood stains from wounded soldiers that were brought there after the battle. People visiting the house today claim they've seen ghostly figures peering from the windows, heard military drums being played, and even heard a woman crying for her dead husband. Because of this, the Travel Channel named the Lotz House as "One of the most terrifying places in America." I haven't been inside this house, but one of our favorite burger joints is mere yards from it. No ghosts have presented themselves to us, but maybe I've been too busy devouring a delicious cheeseburger and onion rings to notice.

The old Courthouse in Williamson County

Quite a few other businesses and homes in the historic district of Franklin boast claims of ghost sightings, unexplained voices, and objects that move on their own. Even the old courthouse, which was used as the Union Army's headquarters, supposedly has the ghosts of several Union soldiers on the balcony from time to time. A walking tour through town is available for those who want to see these places for themselves.

Your turn! Have you ever visited a "haunted" historical site? Tell me about it!




Michelle Shocklee is the award-winning author of The Planter's Daughter and The Widow of Rose Hill. Her new time-slip novel set in Nashville will release in Fall 2020 from Tyndale House Publishers. STAY TUNED! Michelle and her husband of thirty-two years make their home in Tennessee. Connect with her at www.MichelleShocklee.com.

THE PLANTER'S DAUGHTER


Adella Rose Ellis knows her father has plans for her future, but she longs for the freedom to forge her own destiny. When the son of Luther Ellis's longtime friend arrives on the plantation to work as the new overseer, Adella can't help but fall for his charm and captivating hazel eyes. But a surprise betrothal to an older man, followed by a devastating revelation, forces Adella to choose the path that will either save her family's future or endanger the lives of the people most dear to her heart.

Seth Brantley never wanted to be an overseer. After a runaway slave shot him, ending his career as a Texas Ranger and leaving him with a painful limp, a job on the plantation owned by his father's friend is just what he needs to bide his time before heading to Oregon where a man can start over. What he hadn't bargained on was falling in love with the planter's daughter or finding that everything he once believed about Negroes wasn't true. Amid secrets unraveling and the hatching of a dangerous plan, Seth must become the very thing he'd spent the past four years chasing down: an outlaw.

https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Shocklee/e/B01MYD4TRE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1486004955&sr=8-1

Women and the Civil War, Carter House and the Battle of Franklin

Today's post is by Stephanie Grace Whitson, standing in for Debra Lynn Costello.

The women who herded their children down these stairs while a fierce battle waged around them are barely mentioned in this place. They are more of a footnote to the story of the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, wherein 18,000 mostly barefoot and starving Confederate soldiers engaged the Federal army.

Hay bales literally yards from the back door of Carter House pictured at left mark the line of battle, but the battle didn't stop at those hay bales. It surged past it, until men fought in the yard while sisters and mothers and children huddled in a stone-lined basement room, and two non-combatants did their best to keep soldiers in search of respite from breaking in.

One of the men in that basement room, Moscow Carter, had already been a prisoner of war. His wife was dead and he had signed the oath of allegiance to the union so he could get home to help care for his four children. Moscow’s father, Fountain Branch, was also a widower. When Fountain Branch and his wife Polly moved into this lovely brick home, it was at the edge of town on Columbia Pike, the main road to Nashville. 

It takes more than a little effort to imagine farmland and isolation today, as tour guides tell visitors that the cotton gin was across the two-lane paved road near the Dominos Pizza. But in the basement, with the saw-marks still evident on the undersides of the floorboards above your head and the faint aroma of “basement,” it gets easier to imagine the four women living here in what must have sounded like hell.

One woman, Fountain Branch’s daughter-in-law, had come north from Mississippi with her two children … to be safer. What must she have thought as she huddled in the basement? Could she hear the bullets peppering the side of the house? Could she hear the screams?

When the battle was over, Squire Carter (owner of the house) and his two daughters lit lanterns and went looking for their brother, Todd. He’d been off at war for a long while; a courier and aide to one of the generals fighting around their home that day. He was out there … somewhere. They found him only 175 yards from the house. He’d been lying on the battlefield through the long, frigid night. 

While an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old held lanterns, a doctor operated on Todd’s head wound and moved on to others, using the Carter House parlor for a surgical theater.

Forty hours later, resting in the room pictured on the right, wounded in what was left of the family’s vegetable garden, Todd died, just a few yards from the room where he was born.

Two days later, when the Confederate army left the area for Nashville and another ill-fated battle, the women of Franklin were called on to nurse thousands of wounded men. Thousands.

Those nurse’s photographs do not hang on the walls of the Carter House museum alongside those of the men they cared for. The women of Franklin remain mostly nameless, represented in the museum only by an ammunitions chest that Moscow Carter found on the battlefield and the family (presumably the women) later used “to hold quilts.” The women are represented in the fine running stitches that hold white stars on the blue ground of a hand-pieced flag “presented to the men of Company D, First Tennessee Regiment … by the ladies of Franklin.”

Who were they? What were they names? What did they look like? How did they feel about … anything? The museum doesn’t tell us. The tour guide doesn’t say. And the walls of Carter House keep those secrets.

What women of history do you wonder about? What questions would you ask if they came for tea?

__________________________

The women of the Civil War inspired author Stephanie Grace Whitson's newest book, Daughter of the Regiment, which is set in Missouri during the Civil War.

Irish immigrant Maggie Malone wants no part of the war. She’d rather let “the Americans” settle their differences—until her brothers join Missouri’s Union Irish Brigade, and one of their names appears on a list of injured soldiers. Desperate for news, Maggie heads for Boonville, where the Federal army is camped. 

As the mistress of her brother’s Missouri plantation, Elizabeth Blair has learned to play her part as the perfect hostess—and not to question her brother, Walker’s, business affairs. When Walker helps organize the Wildwood Guard for the Confederacy, and offers his plantation as the Center of Operations, Libbie must gracefully manage a house with officers in residence and soldiers camped on the lawn. 

Despite being neighbors, Maggie and Libbie have led such different lives that they barely know one another—until war bring them together, and each woman discovers that both friendship and love can come from the unlikeliest of places.

Publisher’s Weekly says:

“Whitson celebrates the strong but unknown heroines who marched off to war with their men, as well as those who maintained the home front in this Civil War-era inspirational...Based on true events, [Daughter of the Regiment] will capture the hearts of historical fiction fans.” 

Romantic Times says:

“Whitson explores the atypical subject of different women’s roles during the Civil War. The author’s gift for multi-dimensional characters and tight plotting shines through. Romance, family drama, immigrants and dueling factions in the same town add action and intrigue.” 

To order Daughter of the Regiment: http://amzn.to/1KzPB3S

To learn more about Stephanie and her books: www.stephaniewhitson.com