9. H.L. HUNLEY
The H.L. Hunley, also known as the CSS Hunley, was the first combat submarine to sink a warship,
but its success in doing so came at a major cost. It carried Confederate soldiers into Charleston
Harbor for the first time in 1863 as part of a mission to destroy a Union blockade of the city.
But something caused it to sink, killing five of the men aboard.
The sub underwent repairs and was launched again a few months later,
but some knucklehead forgot to close a valve, and the Hunley sank.
The entire eight-man crew died. Once again, the Confederate Navy recovered the vessel and
put it back into service. It was launched for a third and final time in early 1864,
but vanished along with its crew after sinking the U.S. Navy ship USS Housatonic with a torpedo.
The submarine was rediscovered in 1995 by a team of shipwreck hunters. It had come to rest on the
seafloor in Charleston Harbor right next to the Housatonic. The wreck was raised five years later.
No one knows what caused the Hunley to sink. The crew may have run out of oxygen and suffocated
to death after being pushed around by the tides, according to the nonprofit Friends of the Hunley.
Another ship may have clipped the sub, or it may have been destroyed by its own torpedo.
It’s also possible that the captain was somehow disabled by an enemy shooter, causing the vessel
to fill with water and drown the crew. But we’ll probably never be 100 percent sure about what
doomed the Hunley. 8. GLOWING WOUNDS
During the spring of 1862, Union soldiers under the command of Ulysses S. Grant camped out near
the Tennessee River outside Shiloh while they waited for back-up troops to arrive.
On the morning of April 6, a band of Confederate troops launched a surprise attack on the regiment.
The battle continued into the night as the back-up soldiers arrived.
Soon enough, they outnumbered the Confederate unit by over 10,000 men.
Medics on both sides of the skirmish were unprepared for the sheer carnage they
encountered. It took more than two days to remove all the wounded soldiers from the battlefield.
As they laid on the ground into the night waiting for help, they saw that some of
their injuries had a faint greenish-blue glow. The medics who treated them noticed that the
men who reported glowing wounds had a much higher survival rate than those who did not.
They also experienced fewer infections, healed faster, and had less scarring.
The cause of this so-called “Angel’s Glow” remained a mystery until 2001,
when a teenager named Bill Martin visited the battlefield and learned about the strange symptom.
He suspected that luminescent bacteria was responsible and teamed up with his friend,
Jon Curtis, to investigate further.
Their research led them to a glowing bacteria called Photorhabdus luminescens, which lives
inside parasitic worms called nematodes. The nematodes live inside insect larvae,
where they vomit up the bacteria. Bill and John theorized that these nematodes were attracted to
insects living in soldiers’ wounds, and that the bacteria they threw up caused the glow.
The chemicals that were produced in the process killed the insects,
which explains the lower infection rates among those with glowing wounds.
P. luminescens normally can’t survive at human body temperatures, but it was cold
outside for the injured men to get hypothermia, enabling the bacteria to live in their injuries.
John and Bill won first prize that year at the 2001
Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
7. THE “GRAY GHOST” OF THE CONFEDERACY
John Singleton Mosby commanded the 43rd battalion of the Confederate Army, known as “Mosby’s
Rangers.” Based in north-central Virginia, the unit was notorious for its ability to conduct
lightning-quick raids and elude Union forces by disappearing and blending in with locals.
Most of the men who served under Mosby had no previous military experience, yet they
gained a reputation as some of the quickest and cleverest soldiers to fight in the war.
In 1863, Mosby and his 29 men captured a Union general, two captains, 30 enlisted men,
and 58 horses without firing a single shot. He was so good at what he did, he became known as
the “Gray Ghost” of the Confederacy. The commander was also extremely resilient.
He returned to the battlefield just a month after being shot in the thigh and spent just three weeks
recovering after taking a bullet to the groin while taunting a Union regiment on his horse.
Mosby suffered his worst wound when a Union commander shot him through
the window of a home while he ate with a family. The wound was declared mortal,
yet he recovered and returned to the war effort just two months later.
The Union became so desperate to get its hands on the Gray Ghost, it offered a $5,000 bounty
on his head – roughly the equivalent of $90,000 in today’s currency. Even then,
he managed to avoid capture. His enemies couldn’t figure out the secret behind the man’s stealth,
and even when they were hot on his trail, he seemed to magically slip out of sight.
Mosby became one of the last Confederate soldiers to surrender after learning that a warrant for his
arrest had been rescinded. He became a lawyer and formed a friendship with his former enemy
Ulysses S. Grant. The cunning ex-commander went on to serve as the American consul to
Hong Kong and also worked for the Department of Justice. He died in 1916 at the age of 82.
6. CAMP ITCH
Throughout history, soldiers have dealt with a number of uncomfortable, and sometimes deadly,
conditions and infections. After all, it’s difficult to keep up on hygiene while living
in the wilderness, and the conditions can also take a toll on the immune system.
During the Civil War, a painful skin condition known as “camp itch” plagued troops on both
sides of the battlefield. It appeared early on in the war and worsened as the conflict
dragged on, causing severe swelling and blistering of the skin along with
uncontrollable itching. And while the mysterious condition sometimes spread
from returning soldiers to civilians after the war ended, it had all but disappeared by 1867.
Many medical experts at the time were left baffled and unsure of how to treat the symptoms.
Some suspected that epidemic scabies was the culprit and managed to successfully treat
it with certain medications. But on a large scale, the ailment was extremely difficult,
if not impossible to control. It was also difficult to treat because it
was just one of several skin conditions that were known to spread among troops.
Researchers got to the bottom of the mystery in 2006 when they reviewed the chronology and
documentation of the illness and reasonably concluded that “camp itch” was, in fact,
epidemic scabies. It might have been easier to control if soldiers were quicker to report
the condition and if they were relieved from duty while receiving treatment, but neither
scenario was likely, and the torturous ailment pervaded the militaries for the entire war.
5. MYSTERY PHOTOS
The Civil War was the first major conflict to be extensively photographed thanks to the
technology’s increasing popularity at the time. A lot of soldiers carried photos of
their loved ones onto the battlefield, only for the pictures to be found on the ground
later on. And it was often difficult to identify the picture’s owner or the people in the image.
One of these so-called “mystery photos” was found between two dead soldiers – one Union,
and one Confederate – after the Battle of Port Royal in Virginia. It featured a little
girl whose name remains a mystery to this day. Private Thomas W. Timberlake, the Confederate
soldier who discovered the picture, took it with him. It eventually ended up at the Museum of the
Confederacy in Richmond, along with several other mystery photographs that were never reclaimed.
While it’s unlikely that anyone knows who the people in the images are,
the museum welcomes any tips that might help identify them. In 2012, it appealed to the
public for information about the mystery girl, but the mystery remains unsolved.
Who do you think the girl was? Let us know in the comments below and if you’re liking
this video, be sure to hit the thumbs up and subscribe button if you haven’t already! :)
4. THE GETTYSBURG CURSE
The Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg is one of the most historic places in the U.S.
It’s also allegedly one of the country’s most cursed and haunted places. There are countless
ghost sightings, and it seems like anyone who disturbs the site ends up suffering from
serious misfortune, especially if they take rocks from an area called the Devil’s Den.
One man who visited Gettysburg with his wife in 2006 took three small stones as souvenirs.
Not long after that, he broke his arm, lost his job and house, and went to prison for 9 years.
His wife left him but also endured her own string of bad luck in the
form of serious health problems. When the man was released from prison,
he mailed the rocks back to Gettysburg, along with an apology for stealing them.
Stolen property is returned to the site every three or four months,
and usually arrives with an apologetic letter from the thief, according to park ranger Maria Brady,
who spoke with the Washington Post in 2016. Regardless of whether or not the rocks are cursed,
taking them is against park rules, which is a good enough reason to leave them undisturbed.
3. LOST CONFEDERATE GOLD
After the Civil War ended in April 1865, the country needed money to rebuild. The Union
set out to seize Confederate assets with its sights set on the losing party’s war treasury.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his government had fled Richmond with a
large amount of gold, silver, coins, and jewelry after learning that federal troops
were after them. They loaded the goods onto a train and took a separate train southward.
Union officials estimated that the fugitives made off with several million dollars’ worth
of valuables. Confederate Navy Captain William H. Parker, who was tasked with protecting the
treasure, later claimed that he had no more than $500,000 in his possession when he left Richmond.
By then, the Confederacy was more-or-less going broke, and it makes sense to think
that maybe there wasn’t much money left by the time Davis deposited some of it into a
bank vault in Georgia for safekeeping. The true value of the hoard will probably never be known.
When the Union finally caught up with Davis’ party in Irwinville,
Georgia, they only had a few dollars on them. The missing treasure was never found. To this day, it
continues to inspire myths and legends about what might have happened to it or where it might be.
Many believe that the treasure was hidden and that it’s still out there, waiting to be discovered.
Others think that it was stolen, or that it was divided up among plantation owners.
But nobody has been able to prove how a very large amount of money disappeared over the
course of roughly six weeks and never resurfaced. And if anyone has known of its whereabouts at any
point since then, they’ve done a fantastic job at keeping their mouth shut about it.
2. THE GHOSTS OF KOLB’S FARM
Civil War folklore is rife with stories of battlefield ghosts, even when it comes to war’s
smaller and lesser-known skirmishes. Take, for example, the Battle of Kolb’s Farm. On June 22,
1864, 14,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Lieutenant General John B.
Hood attacked a 15,000-strong unit of Union fighters near Marietta, Georgia.
But Hood’s overconfidence backfired on him when poor terrain conditions forced his men to retreat,
securing a Union victory. The battle lasted less than a day,
but the Confederate death toll was still high at 1,500 lives lost.
Houses were eventually built on the property and new residents moved in. It didn’t take
long for some families to start noticing strange supernatural phenomena. One household has claimed
to see a man walking around in their home, clad in Civil War era clothing. They’ve also
experienced mysterious cold sensations and felt invisible hands tugging at their clothing. And
when nobody's looking, someone or something has been known to play with the family’s power tools.
They eventually came to accept the ghost, who seems to be a shy spirit
and only causes mischief when he wants attention. The family has learned to
peacefully coexist with their uninvited housemate, which is probably a good idea.
After all, aside from moving, there’s probably not much else they can do.
1. STONEWALL JACKSON’S DEATH
Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was
second-in-command to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. While returning to camp
with a group of his men one night after the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863,
a fellow unit of Confederate fighters mistook them for a Union cavalry force and opened fire.
Jackson took two bullets to his left arm and one in his right hand. His arm was amputated.
At first, it seemed as though the general was on the road to recovery.
But he contracted pneumonia and died eight days after being shot.
The most commonly accepted version of events holds that Union Major John Berry instructed
his troops to shoot at Jackson’s group without giving them a chance to identify
themselves. But until recently, historians were unable to agree on exactly what caused
the confusion that led to the friendly fire. Over time, the story became muddled with claims
from people who said they played a role in Jackson’s death as a way to piggyback off his
fame. Conspiracy theories and suspicions of foul play further obscured the narrative.
In 2013, astronomer Don Olson and researcher Laurie E. Jasinski
calculated the moon’s exact position and phase on that fateful night.
They also determined exactly where the two parties were positioned when the shooting took
place and what time it probably happened at. Based on these details, it’s extremely likely
that Jackson would have appeared to Berry and his men as a dark, unrecognizable silhouette.
The study marked a major step in solving the mystery and has helped to restore Berry’s
credibility among those who have doubted that his actions were an honest mistake.
Thanks for watching! If you’d like to learn about more Civil War mysteries,
let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe. See you next time, bye! :)