My Experience of Psychic Phenomena in the Cheatham Hill and Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield National Park
by Chad
To preface: our family visited Cheatham Hill over the Christmas holidays. We now live in Los Angeles, CA. My mother and a couple of siblings still live in Kennesaw, GA, and we made a holiday of returning there. I was raised in Kennesaw and Marietta, GA. I worked for the Dept. of the Interior during the summer of 1985 when I was 15 years old. I was a maintenance hand, and our crew maintained the entire battlefield park area that covers Marietta and Kennesaw. I know very well the lay of the lands around there like the back of my hand. I have special places with memories that I try to visit when I am in Georgia. I have some special places that few know about.
I wanted to take my family to Kennesaw to meet my mom and siblings, as well as show them the historic civil war monuments and battlefields, as these places became integral to my childhood and upbringing. they were always there. And I realize now that most people do not grow up around these type of areas, so I feel very fortunate.
To cut to the chase, as it were, I am sensitive to energy. I am not religious, per se, but I believe in the afterlife and reincarnation. I believe in god. I am an "empath," as is my girlfriend. we are sensitive to energies. I have had paranormal experiences at Cheatham Hill as well as down the railroad tracks that run off a field on old 41 hwy. I have seen a ghost, or, something, down there, and have felt the ghosts and bizarre energies at Cheatham Hill.At Cheatham Hill, there is a certain spot upon walking down the trail, from the parking lot, past the first earthworks, to the Illinois monument, that has consistently for years had the same effect upon me every time I go there, no matter the season or how long I have been away from there.
As I continue to walk the trail, I am impinged upon by an energy. Rather, I am met with a presence, or a number of them, as I am sent into a quiet but highly physical and psychic experience: my body feels tingling all over as I walk; a warm rush of energy comes into my body from below and fills into my chest, becoming cold. my skin becomes clammy. I feel somewhat insecure, not necessarily threatened, but I feel extremely vulnerable. There have been moments at various visits when I have been nearly compelled to break down in tears, in full view of whomever happens to be jogging or walking there. Yet I am unable to cry, as if I am frozen in a state of apprehension.
The trail leads to a marker stone, where "Union First Sergeant, D. H. Coffey was mortally wounded". He was buried there, then moved to the big cemetery in old Marietta, just off the square between Powder Springs Road and Atlanta Road (I lived right near this cemetery for a couple of years before I moved out west). The energy lingers around the headstone marker, right by an old tree-trunk with a sign next to it, explaining how mini-balls and bullets have been recovered from the tree. The presence stays with me the whole time I am there, but lessens at the actual Illinois monument. Once at the monument, the feeling lingers but is less specific. It "levels out." Never at any point of my visit to Cheatham Hill do I ever feel normal.
On this visit, I did something different: I took into my hands a small twig that was on the ground. I rubbed it between my fingers and palm and the same tingling feeling came back full-force, as if the tree branch, grown out of the battlefield soil, was charged with the energy of the death trauma. I had never done such an experiment beforehand. It quite surprised me, as I thought that maybe I became a channel for that phenomena. I kept the twig and brought it back to LA. I have not yet rubbed it since my return here. I did notice that the longer I rubbed it, the less it sent electricity into me. I may have been depleting it, as it was very small. but some energy did remain in it.
In ways, when I leave the place, I am glad I am leaving. I like the area, as it is peaceful and kept safe from encroaching development. But to me, it is not entirely as it looks today: the woods and sun filtering down to the fields and earthworks belie a seething rage there. And I think this is what makes me feel disquieted by this "quiet" place. There is a heavy air there, and this pressure upon me is fast released once I get into the car and drive out of the area, back to "real life."
My mother recently described a feeling she had about Cheatham Hill, and I think it is quite profound; she has said: "It is as if we are the ghosts walking among their war."
-chad