About This Location
A state park preserving the site of the Battle of Droop Mountain, fought on November 6, 1863, which was the last significant Civil War engagement in West Virginia. Union forces under General William Averell defeated Confederate forces under General John Echols.
The Ghost Story
On November 6, 1863, the largest and bloodiest Civil War battle fought entirely on West Virginia soil erupted across the ridgeline of Droop Mountain in Pocahontas County. Union General William Averell led approximately 4,000 Federal troops against Confederate Brigadier General John Echols and his force of roughly 1,700 defenders. The battle raged across the mountain's steep, forested slopes for hours, and when it ended, nearly 400 men lay dead or wounded. The Confederate line broke, and the survivors retreated south through Greenbrier County, leaving the mountain to the Union dead, the Confederate dead, and whatever followed.
The paranormal reports at Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park began almost immediately. One of the earliest documented accounts dates to 1865, just two years after the battle. According to local legend, two young girls named Nancy and Betty Snedegar went to the mountain to pick berries and discovered two muskets likely lost during the fighting. They picked up the weapons and began walking home. As they made their way down the mountainside, rocks began flying at them from seemingly nowhere -- pelting them with a force and accuracy that could not be explained by wind or gravity. The barrage continued even after the girls reached their home, with stones coming down the chimney and striking the walls. The legend holds that the terrifying assault ceased only after the girls returned the muskets to the exact spot where they had found them, as though the dead soldiers who had wielded those weapons would not tolerate their removal from the battlefield.
In the century and a half since, visitors to Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park have reported a constellation of phenomena that point to a place where the violence of 1863 has never fully subsided. The smell of gunpowder drifts across the fields and through the tree line on still days when no reenactments or firing demonstrations are scheduled. The thunder of hooves -- galloping horses in full charge -- has been heard echoing across the ridgeline where no horses are present. Cannon fire, the deep concussive boom that defined Civil War combat, has been reported by hikers who felt the sound in their chests before they processed it with their ears.
The apparitions are specific and recurring. A headless Confederate soldier has been seen walking the fields near the mass grave where some of the Southern dead were buried. His figure moves with purpose, covering ground as though still following orders, the absence of his head the only detail that marks him as something beyond the living. Another soldier has been observed sitting against a tree, apparently sleeping, his uniform dirty and his posture that of an exhausted man seeking a moment's rest between engagements. Visitors who approach report that the figure becomes transparent and fades before they can reach him.
Spectral orbs -- floating lights with no identifiable source -- have been photographed and reported throughout the park, particularly near the Confederate graves and along the hiking trails that follow the route of the Union advance. The combination of documented history, physical evidence of battle, and the concentrated death of hundreds of young men in a single afternoon creates conditions that paranormal researchers consider ideal for residual haunting -- the theory that extreme emotional trauma can imprint itself on a physical location and replay like a recording.
Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park encompasses 287 acres of the original battlefield, preserved as West Virginia's first state park. The lookout tower on the summit provides views of the Greenbrier Valley that are stunning by day and deeply unsettling at dusk. The park's trails wind through the same terrain where men fought and died, and the stone monuments marking battle positions stand as permanent reminders of what happened here. For those who visit after dark, the reminders may be more immediate than stone.