Wilderness, Tapp's Farm Paranormal Investigation
Evaluating Virginia's Paranormal Sites

The EVPS Paranormal Group conducted a paranormal investigation on June 19, 2010 from 3:00p.m. at the Battle of the Wilderness Civil War Battlefield in the Tapp's Farm area and at the Michigan Monument.


The photo's where taken at an area called Tapp's Farm. It was the site of intense fighting on May 6th, 1864, during the Battle of Wilderness. Major Winfield Hancock who commanded 40,000 Union Troops led the attack against A. P. Hill's 22,000 strong Confederate Army. Hill was driven back 2 miles, with heavy casualties.

Just about noon, things were looking desperate for Hill. Even the usually unflappable Gen. Robert. E. Lee was appearing anxious. Out of the woods behind them appeared Lt. Gen Longstreet and his 12,000 men arrived to reinforce. Among them were the 1st Texas Brigade. They regained the lost ground and took another 1.5 miles. Pushing Hancock back to Brock Road to regroup.

Exact casualties are unknown for the fighting that took place on this day, but total deaths for the 2 day long Battle of Wilderness are 18,000 for the Union; 11,000 for the Confederates. Here are some other pictures of the historical nature of the site we investigated.

Some photographs of the Widow Tapp's Farm Field battlefield area -

Interesting Events and captures during our investigation -

It is on the outskirts of this battlefield that our daughter, Violet, saw what she described as a woman walking to our right. She took several pictures at this spot. Two photos are included (and a close-up). One of them to show a picture devoid of any signs of ghostly images or light anomalies, and the other to show what we see as a mist in front of the two, thin trees. Suggestions that the formation resulted from sunlight can not be proved or disproved, although we feel they would have appeared in the other photographs we took at the same time for comparison.

After walking through the fields around Tapp's farm. Violet felt an uneasy feeling that "something bad was about to happen" and wanted to leave. We believe this to be emotions from the many bodies buried there or possible residual energy from the battle. (Bodies were quiet often left and not buried, see picture below.)

Also, upon further investigation we found the following passage describing events that occurred on that evening: "In one of the more horrifying incidents of the war, a brush fire broke out between the two armies' lines during the night. Hundreds of wounded soldiers left on the field died screaming as they were burned alive in front of their comrades." We did not find any other signs of ghost or spiritual evidence at this particular location.

Results and Orb Captures from re-visiting the 17th Michigan Monument -

Location: Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse.

EVPS decided to revisit the location of the 17th Michigan Monument after what appeared to be a successful photograph of an orb during our first investigation the week before (entitled 'Spotsylvania Courthouse Paranormal Investigation' in our investigations).

The photographs were taken later in the evening than the one on our previous investigation, closer to 7:00 pm, (the original photo, posted on our first investigation was taken around 4:45 pm) putting the location of the sun in a different area. Thus; suggesting that if the orb had been a reflection of light or light behind the trees, it would not appear around the same location. We leave you to decide -

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