Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: Not all soldiers rest in peace

For 30 years, beautiful Carnton Plantation was a happy and quiet home for the prosperous McGavock family. But on Nov. 30, 1864, this home would see more death and destruction than anyone could have imagined.
The tragedy from that horrible day apparently still remains at Carnton Plantation 146 years later. Some say it is the most haunted building in the state of Tennessee.
Located in historic Franklin, Tenn., Carnton Plantation was built in 1826 by former Nashville mayor and wealthy landowner Randal McGavock. His large estate would play host to such famous men as President Andrew Jackson and Texas statesman Sam Houston. It was a place of comfort and contentment for the McGavock family and their friends. Randal McGavock's son John later inherited the plantation upon his father's death. John McGavock and his wife, Carrie, would have five children over the next several years.
But on Nov. 30, 1864, Carnton Plantation would become witness to one of the bloodiest and most tragic episodes in the War Between the States.
The Confederate Army of Tennessee, under the command of Gen. John Bell Hood, furiously attacked the Union Army entrenched near Franklin. Hood ordered a massive frontal assault against the Yankees that was larger than the better-known Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Much of the combat took place around the Carnton Plantation. What became known as the Battle of Franklin lasted almost five hours and led to some 9,500 soldiers being killed, wounded, captured, or missing in action. Nearly 7,000 of those men were Confederate troops. The South paid a heavy price for Hood's reckless order.
The once beautiful plantation suddenly became the largest field hospital in the area for hundreds of wounded and dying Confederate soldiers. Surgeons operated on the men in the mansion's front parlor and bodies were stacked on the porch. A staff officer later wrote "the wounded, in hundreds, were brought to (the house) during the battle, and all the night after. And when the noble old house could hold no more, the yard was appropriated until the wounded and dead filled that," according to the Web site about the place.
On the morning of Dec. 1, 1864 the bodies of four Confederate generals killed during the fighting were laid on the back porch. They were Gens. Patrick R. Cleburne, Hiram B. Granbury, John Adams and Otho F. Strahl. Today, the floors of the restored home are still stained with the blood of the men who suffered and died there.
In early 1866, the McGavock family designated two acres of land next to their family cemetery as the final resting place for nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers killed during the Battle of Franklin. The McGavocks maintained the cemetery until they too died. This story would inspire the best-selling and acclaimed novel "The Widow of the South." Today, the McGavock Confederate Cemetery is the largest privately owned military cemetery in the nation and the plantation is open to the public, according to the Web site.
Over the years, both the staff and tourists at Carnton Plantation have noticed that those who died in that battle still linger. Folks have reported seeing the ghost of Gen. Cleburne. He has been seen marching around the grounds. Others have reported hearing the sounds of his boots on the porch's wooden floor. People have also talked about hearing the sounds of muskets and cannons firing as if the battle was still raging.
In addition, there are other phantoms haunting Carnton Plantation and they apparently have no connection to the Battle of Franklin. They include the ghost of a former cook, a mysterious woman in white and the spirit of a little girl who was killed in the 1840s. Still others talk about seeing a ghostly fiddler in the parlor.
Today, historic Carnton Plantation holds evening ghost tours of the house. The staff has also collected pictures of some unexplained phenomena at "the most haunted building in Tennessee," according to its Web site.