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Civil War Ghosts of Atlanta · Fjaftermidnight

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Atlanta today, it's a city of skyscrapers, highways, restaurants, music, sports,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and millions of people moving through its streets every day.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But beneath the modern Atlanta is another city, a city
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of railroads, a city of soldiers, a city of hospitals,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a city of smoke and fire, and a city forever
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: marked by the American Civil War. In the summer of 1864,
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  Speaker 1: Atlanta became the center of one of the most important
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: military campaigns of the war. Union and Confederate armies fought
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: around the city. Thousands of soldiers were killed or wounded.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Civilians were caught in the middle. Homes were destroyed. Businesses disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: And eventually, much of Atlanta was consumed by fire. But
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: some people believe that when the flames disappeared, the stories didn't.
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  Speaker 1: There are legends of soldiers seen walking where battles once
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  Speaker 1: took place, stories of unexplained footsteps, voices, apparitions, and locations
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  Speaker 1: where visitors claim the atmosphere changes the moment they realize
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  Speaker 1: what happened there. Tonight on FJ After Midnight, we're going
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  Speaker 1: back to the Atlanta of 1864, not simply to tell
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  Speaker 1: the story of a battle, but to explore the stories
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of the people who never seem to have left.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome. to Civil War ghosts of Atlanta.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Before Atlanta became the enormous metropolitan area we know today,
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  Speaker 1: it was a railroad city.
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  Speaker 2: Its location made it strategically important.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Railroads connected Atlanta to other parts of the Confederacy, making
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the city an important transportation and supply center. And in 1864,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman began moving toward Atlanta.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: The Confederate Army defending the city was commanded by General
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  Speaker 1: Joseph E.
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  Speaker 2: Johnston.
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  Speaker 1: The campaign would eventually bring the war directly to Atlanta's doorstep.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Imagine walking through Atlanta in the summer of 1864. There
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: are no skyscrapers, no interstate highways, no modern skyline. Instead,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: there are wooden buildings, dirt roads, railroad tracks, horse-drawn wagons,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: soldiers everywhere, and the constant knowledge that an enormous army
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: is approaching. For civilians, the war wasn't something happening somewhere
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: far away. It was coming directly toward them. And eventually,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it arrived. The Atlanta Campaign consisted of a series of
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: battles and military movements across Georgia. By July of 1864,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Union forces were closing in. One of the most significant
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: battles occurred on July 22nd. The Battle of Atlanta was
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  Speaker 1: fought east and southeast of the city. Thousands of soldiers participated.
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  Speaker 1: Thousands were killed, wounded, or captured. Imagine standing on the battlefield.
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  Speaker 1: You hear artillery. You hear gunfire. Officers shouting orders. Horses
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: moving through the chaos. And somewhere nearby, someone is calling
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  Speaker 1: for help. When historians describe battles, we often hear numbers.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Casualties. Regiments. Generals. Maps. But behind every number was a person.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: A son. A brother. A husband. A friend.
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  Speaker 1: Someone who had a home somewhere. Someone who expected to survive.
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  Speaker 1: And that human element is important when discussing the ghost
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: stories connected to Civil War battlefields. Because many haunting legends
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: begin with the same question. What happens to a place
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: where thousands of people died? Northwest of Atlanta stands Kennesaw Mountain.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Today it's a national battlefield and a place where visitors
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: can hike through beautiful wooded landscapes. But in 1864, these
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: hills became the scene of intense fighting. The Battle of
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  Speaker 1: Kennesaw Mountain took place on June 27, 1864. Union forces
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: attempted to break through Confederate defenses. The attack resulted in
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: heavy casualties. Today, the battlefield is quiet. Birds replace gunfire.
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  Speaker 1: Trees replace marching armies. Hikers replace soldiers. But ghost stories
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  Speaker 1: have developed around Civil War battlefields like Kennesaw Mountain for generations.
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  Speaker 1: Some visitors have reported hearing sounds they couldn't explain. Others
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  Speaker 1: describe feelings of suddenly being watched. And some paranormal investigators
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  Speaker 1: have claimed to capture unexplained sounds or voices. But here's
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  Speaker 1: where we need to make an important distinction. A strange
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  Speaker 1: sound isn't automatically evidence of a ghost. Forests are full
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  Speaker 1: of sounds. Wind moves through trees. Animals travel through brush.
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  Speaker 1: Modern roads and aircraft can carry sound surprisingly far. And
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: human perception can be influenced by what we already know
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  Speaker 1: about a location. Still, there is something unsettling about standing
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  Speaker 1: in a place where soldiers once fought and died. Because
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  Speaker 1: the history is real. Even when the supernatural stories remain unproven.
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  Speaker 1: On July 20, 1864, fighting erupted at Peachtree Creek. The
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: battle took place just north of Atlanta. The Union Army
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: had crossed Peachtree Creek and Confederate forces attempted to attack.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: The fighting was intense. Today, much of the battlefield has
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: been transformed by Atlanta's growth. Roads, neighborhoods, businesses, modern development.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: The city expanded around places that once held armies. and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that creates an unusual experience. You can stand somewhere today
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  Speaker 1: and look around and see absolutely nothing that resembles 1864.
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  Speaker 1: Yet underneath the modern city is the history. Some ghost
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: stories connected to Civil War locations describe soldiers appearing briefly
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: before disappearing. Others involve unexplained footsteps or voices. There are
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  Speaker 1: also stories of people hearing distant battle sounds. Again, these
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  Speaker 1: accounts are stories, not established historical facts, but they raise
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: an interesting question. Could places with traumatic histories affect the
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  Speaker 1: way people experience them generations later? Psychologists and historians can
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  Speaker 1: discuss memory, expectation, environmental sounds, and storytelling. Paranormal investigators may
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  Speaker 1: interpret the same experience differently. And that's where the mystery begins.
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  Speaker 1: The dead from the Civil War didn't simply disappear. they
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  Speaker 1: had to be buried, and Atlanta became surrounded by cemeteries
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  Speaker 1: containing soldiers.
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  Speaker 2: From both armies.
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  Speaker 1: One of the most important is Marietta National Cemetery, established
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  Speaker 1: after the war and containing thousands of Union soldiers. Then
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: there's Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, established before the Civil War.
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  Speaker 1: Oakland became an important burial ground during and after the conflict. Today,
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  Speaker 1: Oakland Cemetery is one of Atlanta's most historically significant locations.
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  Speaker 1: Among its graves are Confederate soldiers, Union soldiers, politicians, business leaders,
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  Speaker 1: and ordinary Atlanta residents. Walking through Oakland at dusk can
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  Speaker 1: feel like stepping into another century. And naturally, a place
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  Speaker 1: filled with graves has accumulated ghost stories. Visitors and storytellers
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  Speaker 1: have reported apparitions, unexplained voices, and strange experiences. But Oakland's
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  Speaker 1: real history is already haunting enough, because every grave represents
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  Speaker 1: a person who once had a life. Perhaps no event
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  Speaker 1: has become more legendary in Atlanta's Civil War history than
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the burning of the city. In November of 1864, Union
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: forces under Sherman began destroying military resources and infrastructure as
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: they prepared to leave Atlanta. Much of the city was destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: For people living in Atlanta at the time, this wasn't history.
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  Speaker 1: It was happening around them. Homes were being destroyed. Businesses
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  Speaker 1: were disappearing. Smoke filled the air. Families were being displaced.
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  Speaker 1: and Atlanta's future was uncertain. Imagine returning to your neighborhood
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  Speaker 1: and finding that the place you knew was gone. That
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  Speaker 1: kind of trauma can become part of a city's collective memory,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and Atlanta never completely escaped the shadow of 1864. As
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Atlanta rebuilt, stories about the Civil War remained. Some were
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  Speaker 1: family stories, some became local legends, and others became ghost stories.
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  Speaker 1: A soldier appearing beside a road. A figure seen near
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  Speaker 1: an old battlefield. Footsteps inside an old building. A voice
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  Speaker 1: heard when nobody else was there. But there's another way
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to look at these stories. Maybe the ghost isn't necessarily
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  Speaker 1: a supernatural being. Maybe the ghost is memory. The memory
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  Speaker 1: of a city that experienced enormous destruction. The memory of
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  Speaker 1: families who lost people they loved. The memory of soldiers
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  Speaker 1: who never returned home. The memory of Atlanta itself. Today,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Atlanta is constantly moving. Cars travel roads where soldiers once marched.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Buildings stand where homes once burned. People live ordinary lives
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  Speaker 1: on land where extraordinary events occurred. And occasionally, someone stops.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: They look around, and they wonder what happened here. That's
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: one reason Civil War ghost stories remain popular.
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  Speaker 2: They encourage us to remember.
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  Speaker 1: Because sometimes, the most powerful ghost story isn't about an apparition.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: It's about history refusing to disappear. Atlanta survived the Civil War.
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  Speaker 1: It rebuilt, it expanded, it transformed, and today it's one
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  Speaker 1: of the largest and most influential cities in the South.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But beneath the modern city is an older Atlanta. An
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Atlanta of railroads, soldiers, battlefields, cemeteries.
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  Speaker 2: And fire.
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  Speaker 1: Are the ghosts of the Civil War still here? that's
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  Speaker 1: a question nobody can answer with certainty. Some experience have
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: natural explanations. Others remain stories passed from one generation to another.
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  Speaker 1: But whether you believe in ghosts or not, one thing
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  Speaker 1: is certain. The people who lived through the Civil War
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  Speaker 1: were real. Their suffering was real. Their loss was real.
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  Speaker 1: And their history remains part of Atlanta. So the next
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  Speaker 1: time you're driving through Atlanta, or walking through one of
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  Speaker 1: its historic neighborhoods, take a moment.
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  Speaker 2: Look around.
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  Speaker 1: Because beneath the modern city, there's another Atlanta. And sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: if you listen closely, you might wonder whether it ever
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  Speaker 1: really left.
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  Speaker 2: This has been FJ After Midnight. I'm your host, and
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  Speaker 2: I'll see you after midnight. Thank you.