Soldier ghosts
35 places
Soldier ghosts often come with a date and a battle, which makes them easier to check than most. The Continental troops at Cliveden are tied to the attack of October 1777, and the sharpshooters in the attic of the Farnsworth House to Gettysburg. At RAF East Kirkby, the story is of Second World War aircrew, though no individual is identified in any source.
One of the most famous sightings is much older in subject and much younger in telling: the Roman legionaries a young engineer said he watched march through the cellar of the Treasurer's House in York in 1953. A battle being real does not make its ghost story true, so each page separates the two.
Where they are reported
Culzean Castle
Scotland, United Kingdom
Knight in armor
Robert Adam's clifftop castle in Ayrshire, said to host seven ghosts, from a piper lost in the sea caves with his dog to a girl in the kitchen corridors.
Myrtles Plantation
Louisiana, United States
Confederate soldier by the pond
Myrtles Plantation, St. Francisville, Louisiana: a 1796 house sold as one of America's most haunted, whose famous Chloe legend has no known historical basis.
The Octagon House
District Of Columbia, United States
The soldier on the stairs
The Octagon, Washington, D.C.: the 1800 Tayloe house where Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent, linked to ghostly bells, Dolley Madison and a debunked legend.
Berry Pomeroy Castle
England, United Kingdom
The Cavalier
Ruined castle and Tudor mansion in South Devon, abandoned around 1700 and said to be haunted by a White Lady and a Blue Lady, legends shaped by a Gothic novel.
Morris–Jumel Mansion
New York, United States
George Washington · Revolutionary War soldiers · The Hessian soldier
Morris-Jumel Mansion, Manhattan's oldest house: Washington's 1776 headquarters, later Eliza Jumel's home, where her ghost is said to hush visitors.
Stirling Castle
Scotland, United Kingdom
The Highland soldier · The phantom sentry
Royal fortress above Stirling where Mary, Queen of Scots was crowned, home to the Green Lady legend, built around a real 1561 bed fire, and a Pink Lady.
Leith Hall
Scotland, United Kingdom
Young man in uniform
A 17th-century Aberdeenshire house of the Leith-Hay family, said to be haunted by laird John Leith, shot in an Aberdeen tavern in 1763, seen in bloody bandages.
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
West Virginia, United States
Civil War soldiers
One of West Virginia's two oldest towns, on the Potomac, branded America's most haunted town by a 2016 TV series; its Entler Hotel museum hosts ghost nights.
Fort Adams
Rhode Island, United States
Soldiers of the fort
Newport, Rhode Island's huge granite coastal fort, built 1824-1857, where TV ghost hunters reported footsteps, touches and a child's voice in the tunnels.
Chislehurst Caves
England, United Kingdom
Roman centurion
Man-made chalk mines under Chislehurst, southeast London, where tour lore tells of a drowned woman rising from a pool and a night-alone dare that ended in fear.
Baker Hotel
Texas, United States
Helicopter pilot
The Baker Hotel, a 1929 spa tower in Mineral Wells, Texas, closed since 1972 and famed for its lavender-scented seventh-floor lady, now under restoration.
The Farnsworth House Inn
Pennsylvania, United States
Confederate sharpshooters of the attic
The Farnsworth House Inn in Gettysburg: a house the inn dates to 1810, scarred by Civil War bullets; its owners say up to 16 spirits roam its rooms and cellar.
Goodrich Castle
England, United Kingdom
Charles Clifford, the Royalist lover · Colonel John Birch
Ruined Herefordshire castle wrecked by the Roaring Meg mortar in 1646; legend says Alice Birch and her Royalist lover drowned fleeing and still cry in storms.
Saltair
Utah, United States
The military man
The Great Salt Lake resort near Magna, Utah: two lost pavilions, a 1981 concert hall where staff report a woman in white, children's laughter and a soldier.
Treasurer's House, York
England, United Kingdom
The Roman soldiers of the cellar
A National Trust house by York Minster, famous for the Roman legionaries a young engineer said he saw marching through its cellar in 1953, cut off at the knees.
Ferry Plantation House
Virginia, United States
Fallen soldier
A c. 1830 brick house on a 1642 ferry site in Virginia Beach, now a volunteer museum that counts 11 spirits, from a kneeling old man to ghostly children.
Schooner Hotel
England, United Kingdom
The soldier of rooms 16 and 17
A 17th-century coaching inn in Alnmouth, Northumberland, billed as Britain's most haunted hotel, with ghost stories built around room 28 and Most Haunted.
Mission San Juan Capistrano
California, United States
Headless soldier
Mission San Juan Capistrano (1776), Orange County: the 1812 church collapse, Magdalena's candlelit face, the faceless monk and a 2013 Ghost Hunters visit.
McRaven House
Mississippi, United States
Confederate soldier in the chair
McRaven House in Vicksburg, Mississippi: an antebellum home shelled in the 1863 siege, billed as the state's most haunted house and probed by parapsychologists.
The Flask, Highgate
England, United Kingdom
The Cavalier
A historic Highgate pub in north London, on this site since at least 1663, said to be haunted by a heartbroken Spanish barmaid and a vanishing Cavalier.
RAF East Kirkby
England, United Kingdom
Phantom aircrew of the control tower
A former Lancaster bomber base in Lincolnshire, now an aviation museum, where the restored WWII control tower is said to be haunted by phantom aircrew.
Scarborough Castle
England, United Kingdom
Roman soldier
A ruined royal castle on a North Sea headland in Yorkshire, where the headless ghost of Piers Gaveston is said to lure visitors toward the cliff edge in fog.
Camp Chase
Ohio, United States
Shadow soldier at Allen's grave
The last trace of Camp Chase, a Civil War prison in Columbus, Ohio: a cemetery of some 2,200 Confederates, haunted, legend says, by a Lady in Gray.
Fort Delaware
Delaware, United States
Confederate prisoners
Granite Civil War fort and Union prison on Pea Patch Island, Delaware. Its prison deaths are documented; we traced no ghost story to before 2008.
General Wayne Inn
Pennsylvania, United States
Soldier at the bar · Wilhelm the Hessian
The General Wayne Inn in Merion Station, Pennsylvania: a tavern founded in 1704, famous for a Hessian ghost named Wilhelm, and a synagogue since 2005.
Alice Austen House
New York, United States
The heartbroken British soldier
Clear Comfort, photographer Alice Austen's harborside Staten Island home, where an 1895 article recorded tales of cellar chains and a British soldier's spurs.
Broadway Cemetery Historic District
Texas, United States
Nicaragua Smith
Seven historic cemeteries on Broadway in Galveston, Texas, said to be haunted by Nicaragua Smith, a Union turncoat shot by Confederates in 1863.
Cliveden
Pennsylvania, United States
Continental soldiers of the Battle of Germantown
Georgian mansion in Philadelphia's Germantown where British troops held off Washington's army in 1777; legend says slain soldiers and a headless woman remain.
The Grenadier
England, United Kingdom
Cedric
A hidden Belgravia mews pub, once an officers' mess, said to be haunted by Cedric, a young officer beaten to death for cheating at cards, mostly in September.
RAF Montrose
Scotland, United Kingdom
Lt Desmond Arthur (airman in the officers’ mess)
Angus airfield (1913-1952) tied to Lt Desmond Arthur, killed in 1913; the ghost story is dated only by later books and websites, so its origin is unproven.
Artillery Company of Newport
Rhode Island, United States
Spirits of former soldiers
The 1835 stone armory of the Artillery Company of Newport, Rhode Island, a militia chartered in 1741, now a museum with ghost tours and EVP fundraising hunts.
Houska Castle
Libereck , Czechia
Oront, the Swedish commander
Gothic castle in northern Bohemia, open for guided tours, said to guard a pit to hell; a 1541 chronicle has a spirit-filled hole nearby but no hell.
Castello della Rotta
Turin, Italy
Templar knight of La Rotta
Medieval Templar-Hospitaller site at La Rotta, near Turin, billed as very haunted; when the legends began is unsettled: 1980s per skeptics, a 1978 book cited.
Golconda Fort Ruins
Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Soldiers of Golconda
Qutb Shahi citadel on the edge of Hyderabad, taken by Aurangzeb in 1687. Travel lists say soldiers and the court dancer Taramati still linger.
Lothian Cemetery Delhi
Delhi, Nct Of Delhi, India
Sir Nicholas, the headless officer
Delhi's early 19th-century British cemetery at Kashmiri Gate, with graves from the 1857 uprising and a rumored headless officer who calls a woman's name.
