Tom Brooks is a Civil War reenactor with Company "C", 10th Louisiana. Currently a resident of Ontario, Tom has traveled extensively throughout the world. Because his Irish grandfather fought in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey, Tom's travels have frequently led him to those three battlefields. Tom is quite knowledgeable about Anzac Cove, Cape Helles, and Suvla Bay; enough so that he had conducted battlefield tours to these locations. Despite the fact that Gallipoli's casualty statistics are slightly lower than our Civil War, the trauma, anguish, and spilled blood run thick.

In the 1980's Tom found himself alone one day in Gully Ravine in Cape Helles. Reported to be a "God-forsaken death trap," Tom stood there midst the remaining energy of war. Suddenly, his blood ran icy cold!

Today, he insists that he'll never return there alone. As he sits a half a world away, a decade later, Tom can yet experience that bonechilling feeling when he recalls Gully Ravine.

Nevertheless, Tom Brooks still isn't certain that he believes in ghosts. Friday night, July 31, 1992, offered him another opportunity to consider the possibility. Steve Mayes of the same reenactment unit accompanied Tom to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. The pair chose the fort's bakery to bed down in for the evening.

As Tom explains, "Fort Warren is a massive masonry structure covering some thirty-three acres, most of George's island. Constructed in the 1820's, the fort is now a warren of casements, barracks, and tunnels. It is derelict, except for the occasional tourist and Civil War enthusiast. However, during the war in the 1860's, it was used as a prison for captured Confederates."

For lack of other beds, Steve and Tom made comfortable beds of straw. Tom found his harmonica and played a sorrowful rendition of "Dixie." The melancholy tune echoed throughout the empty chamber, dimly lit by their solitary candle and soft moonlight coming through the open windows. Later, Tom would wonder if it was this gentle tune of "Dixie" that beckoned the apparition.

Steve was sound asleep on his bed. But, Tom describes his experience. "Around three o'clock in the morning, I suddenly awoke from my sleep and sat straight up in bed. Coming towards me from the open courtyard doorway, I saw in the moonlight a man. He had a grayish beard, planter's straw hat, white shirt and similar trousers. For some reason, I had it in my mind that he was after our rifles. I screamed in an alarmed tone, 'What the hell do you want?!!" With that, Steve awoke with a start.

"I momentarily took my eyes off the vision to remove my blanket. When I did and then looked back, he was no longer there. I jumped to my feet, grabbed my rifle and ran to the doorway. I could see no one in the courtyard. The sounds of a gentle falling rain was all that met my ears."

Was it an apparition of a long dead Confederate prisoner that Tom saw? When he retold his story the next morning at breakfast, "the keeper of tales" about Fort Warren agreed that indeed he did.