History & local legend
The Triangular Field lies on Houck’s Ridge, west of Devil’s Den on the Gettysburg battlefield. Among its ghost stories are reports of failing cameras, unexplained lights and figures moving along the wooded edge.
Ghost Research Society investigator Dale Kaczmarek described a visit there with his research assistant, Jim Graczyk, on April 23, 2006. Standing beside the stone wall, both men smelled cherry pipe tobacco although they could see no one nearby. They then heard a horse cantering. As they turned toward the sound, it stopped. Against the lights of Gettysburg they saw a dark figure climbing a rocky slope, taking deliberate steps without a flashlight. They were too far away to make out its features.
An earlier recording came from Tom and Delia Underwood, who filmed the tree line in 2001. Their footage showed small lights appearing in a row, followed by indistinct shapes moving among the trees. Kaczmarek interpreted the sequence as resembling soldiers firing and moving through the field.
Sources
- Ghost Research Society, Gettysburg 2021 report, Kaczmarek’s dated account with Graczyk and the Underwoods’ 2001 footage
- Ghost Research Society, Gettysburg battlefield investigation, account of the April 2006 encounter at the Triangular Field
- Gettysburg Daily, Triangular Field Panorama, placement of the wall and the field’s camera folklore
- Gettysburg Daily, field photographs and landscape in relation to the 124th New York monument
- OpenStreetMap, named Triangular Field landmark on Houck’s Ridge
