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Vicksburg, MS
Low-lying neighborhoods of this city were badly hit by the May 2011 floods, but the higher, more historic section of town came through fine. The Union's victory in this old part of town split the Confederacy in two: Ergo, lots of unhappy ghosts. History buff Morgan Gates takes up to six passengers at a time for Haunted Vicksburg Tours ($25) in a most appropriate vehicle: a hearse.
But how do you see ghosts, or anything else, from inside a hearse? There are, in fact, six windows in this hearse, including one in the rear. (Why -- so the deceased could look out?). Gates has also mounted a videocam on the vehicle that streams on an inside monitor.
“There's a lot of paranormal activity now because of the 150th anniversary,” says Gates. Uh, okay.
More Ghost Tours & Horseback Riding
Gettysburg, PA
Site of the turning point of the Civil War, Gettysburg offers every imaginable way to revisit history, from traditional tours to SegTours' guided tours of the sprawling battlefield, as well as numerous paranormal tours, including Ghosts of Gettysburg excursions run by author and historian Mark Nesbitt. (Scott Crownover took this photo "using a special technique for photographing spirit energies during the daylight.")
Perhaps best of all, Artillery Ridge offers two-hour horseback tours of the battlefield ($75 per person) with recorded narration, and Hickory Hollow Farm offers horseback tours with a licensed guide ($55 an hour). Riding across the Gettysburg battlefield, you get a profound sense of how this terrain looked to the mounted troops. These rides follow the same route up the Union-held ridge that the right flank of 12,000 Confederates took in Pickett's Charge.
At the top you get a sweeping view of the battlefield, but Pickett's men didn't get that far. So on July 3, 1863, the whole direction of the war changed.
This story first ran on IndependentTraveler.com.
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