This book is the third in a series of anthropological studies which analyze ghosts and haunting phenomena in their cultural context. A history of visitations to the Gettysburg landscape is linked to the presence or absence of anomalous sensory manifestations. The preliminary analysis of the data suggests that the hauntings at Gettysburg may be a product of sociocultural factors, in part related to the growth of heritage tourism, rather than any ghostly manifestations by civil war soldiers. Since this is a preliminary analysis, a research design is proposed to further excavate the Gettysburg landscape. This approach is based on the use of ethnographic context, spatial symmetry, cultural relativity, and performance-based investigative practices. The author proposes that through this methodology, acontrolled excavation of the landscape can be made, thus unearthing a more scientific analysis and evaluation of Gettysburg as a haunted cultural place.

Phantom Gettysburg discusses the contemporary alternative version of a perceived haunted battlefield. In order to understand this alternative perception, contemporary anomalous phenomena must be affixed to and analyzed within their exact historical setting and social context. An ethnographic model of mid-19thc. American culture is used as the basis for this analysis. Specifically, the cultural beliefs relative to the concepts of death and the afterlife, as it was envisioned by these soldiers, is the basis for this model. This historical ethnographic analysis serves two purposes. First, it is a means to legitimize the methodology and fieldwork practices of ghost research. Second, it is meant to analyze the Gettysburg experience and its haunting uncertainty in its historical and sociocultural environment. The conclusion that is drawn from this comparative approach alters the reality and representation of an interactive ghostly battlefield presence. A Gettysburg haunted by Civil War soldiers is considered, for the most part, a phantom experience.

Battlefield Hauntscape introduces a new field survey approach to unearth the patterns of ghostly phenomenon on a battlefield. Both residual and interactive presence can be isolated and separately distinguished using this new methodology. This technique is based on the K.O.C.O.A. (key terrain, observation, cover and concealment, obstacles, and avenues of approach), a military strategy of terrain analysis that is still used at West Point. In ghost research, K.O.C.O.A. is used to identify the locations of potential paranormal phenomenon. From the located nodes of discontinuous anomalies, the ghostly drama is unearthed through a performance-based excavation process. The Gettysburg battlefield is used to illustrate the dynamics of this approach. The author suggests that the K.O.C.O.A. survey is a more accurate and scientific method of documenting battlefield ghost phenomena than the more subjective accounts of hauntings, characteristic of most books that recount encounters with the Gettysburg ghosts.

Ghost Research is archaeological work that requires specific field practices. This book introduces the investigative techniques of a "ghost archaeology". This is defined as a scientific discipline of the "ordinary", a search for the repetitive patterns of cultural behavior that can be unearthed during an field investigation. Six case studies of cultural hauntings are presented which illustrate the usefulness of archaeological methodology and techniques in field research. The investigation of ghostly presence at Gettysburg, in the anthracite coal region, at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, and a Civil War haunting in Petersburg, Virginia are cited. These investigations show how potential evidential data can be uncovered, if only the investigators would maintain an archaeological sensibility in their fieldwork operations.

"Digging-Deep" is an excavation of the archaeological site called "John Sabol". It is an unearthing of the author's memory of experiences ofpast presences that cuts across space, time, and culture. Water, mining operations, dust and dirt, dogs and wolves, and ghosts are seen as important features that are re-covered from these memory excavations. Some of the re-called practices that are unearthed include an alternative remembrance of "trick or treat", the multiple symmetrical worlds of history, myth, and ghosts in Winchester, England, the haunting nature of archaeological excavations and field surveys, the actor's encounters with more than a filmed "death scene", and a search for a legendary monster in Arkansas. All of these memories are perceived as symetrically-interrelated though they originate in different places. They are viewed as a form of "theatrical ghosting", a resonating element that unfolds time, as events and activities are framed by their contemporary significance in the author's life. In this process of excavation, a re-curring haunting drama manifests in the life of this archaeologist, who also happens to be a cultural anthropologist, actor, and "ghost excavator".

A major focus of ghost excavation, as opposed to ghost "hunting", is an archaeology of experience. The emergence of this experience is unearthed through the investigative engagement of haunted space. One aspect of this engagement is performance, which requires a specific sociocultural and historical context of understanding. This context of understanding must be understood in terms of layers of meaning. Gettysburg is used as a specific example of the use of performative and dramatical activity. Each of these activities performed at Gettysburg predisposes a genre,a set of beliefs, practices, social relations, manifestations, and locations which together define categorically what it is that is manifesting on the battlefield, and what interpretations are being used to understand these performative cultural practices. The genres of performative action at Gettysburg are important because they are located at places on the battlefield where belief systems become mobilized into actual practice. This book will explore various haunting uncertainties and cultural situations associated with ghostly activity, and the implications of these performances as they are enacted by ghost hunters, Civil War re-enactors, the tourism industry, and the "ghosts" themselves.

This book is an archaeological excavation of anomalous phenomena that still lingers to haunt various locations in the anthracite coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The unearthing of this haunting presence is both a metaphorical excavation (the bringing "into the light" of various dramas, events, and experiences of an individual and collective nature), and a physical engagement (the emergence of ghostly presence through investigative field performances). This anthracite coal region drama is viewed through the use of a "deep map" of short, but compendious, "ghost" narratives. This "deep map" consists of autobiographical events, symmetrical archaeological practices, memories of local places, ethnic folklore, haunting traces and manifestations, natural history, the use of ascientific fieldmethodology, and a sincere, and profound,sensitivity to the land. These "ghost" narratives are a subtle, multi-layered and "deep mining" of a small regional landscape that has long been neglected, and been perceived as "insignificant" social history. This book is meant to change that perceptionthrough a sensualunearthing of its haunting uncertainties.

Leading authorities shed new light on the greatest battle in American history, focusing in particular on the unknown, the controversial, and what might have been.

The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead, he gave the whole nation "a new birth of freedom" in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training, and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece. By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.