THE GUARDIANS OF DEVIL’S DEN
[Submitted by: Wayne Krause]

I just finished reading Haunted Gettysburg and was prompted to write about an experience my wife and I had this past June (1996) in Gettysburg.

We had just finished a delightful dinner at one of the long-time local restaurants and my wife suggested we drive through the battlefield before it closed for the night. We entered the battlefield by the Peach Orchard around 9:30 PM. As we proceeded to Devil’s Den, we both noted how quiet, peaceful, and subdued the night was, especially for an area that was known for death and destruction.

With no other vehicles or people in the area, we slowly drove across the field to Devil’s Den. As we followed the road that surrounds the boulders, we came to a rise in the road, then saw in the distance coming toward us, a troop of soldiers. I described them as soldiers because they were dressed in Confederate attire carrying muskets, marching in a straight line. The lead man was dressed in a gray uniform with a large hat on his head. He had a ghostly stare, and a pale face with a flesh wound on it. The ironic part is the soldiers never moved their stare from my blinding headlights. As I looked in my rear view mirror, I saw nothing. I turned to my wife and responded by saying, "That’s somebody playing a sick joke." Possibly it was my response to denial. I was determined to find an explanation to this frightening experience. I then drove around and back through Devil’s Den to see if I could find the pranksters. I could not find them on my second run. I was ever more determined, so I drove around a third time. At the exact point of initial contact, we were confronted by the same troops, coming from nowhere – the same man in front and the same troops marching!

As a practicing psychologist and my wife, a nurse, we cannot explain what we saw that night. The next night I saw the book, Haunted Gettysburg. In the book the figures that have been seen at Devil’s Den are similar to what we experienced. We now plan to visit Gettysburg again the first weekend in August.