The Ghosts of the Pentagon Barracks

The Baton Rouge Barracks, nicknamed the "Pentagon Barracks" due to the layout of the buildings, were built over a period of about six years, from 1819 to 1825. James Gadsden, a captain in the U.S. Army, designed the two-story brick buildings and oversaw their construction. The buildings were laid out forming four sides of a regular pentagon, with an additional building housing a commissary and warehouse making up the fifth side. The commissary building was torn down not long after its construction due to an oversight in construction that rendered it unstable and unusable; however, the name Pentagon Barracks would live on.

In January 1861, the State of Louisiana seized the barracks and the adjoining arsenal from the Union troops who occupied it in a bloodless attack and turned over the operation of the complex to the Confederate States of America. Confederate troops were housed at the barracks until they evacuated Baton Rouge in April 1862 during the Battle of New Orleans. By May of that year, the barracks and all of Baton Rouge were in the hands of the Union army. The Confederates staged an attempt to regain the city in August. About six thousand Confederate troops attacked just north of the city and were defeated by about eighteen thousand firmly entrenched Union soldiers. The town was damaged badly, and several civilians, as well as numerous soldiers from both sides, including Union general Thomas Williams, were killed during the attack. The Union army would rename the facility Fort Williams in General Williams's honor. By 1884, the barracks were no longer in use by the army. After a resolution passed by the General Assembly of Louisiana, the property and buildings were allocated to Louisiana State University. The school would gain full possession of the property around 1886, and it would remain there until moving to its new campus in 1926. For the most part, the barracks would fluctuate between usage and abandonment up until 1976, when the property was transferred back to the State of Louisiana and then placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Work would begin on the buildings shortly after that, and today they house the Pentagon Barracks Museum, the lieutenant governor's offices and private apartments for the use of state legislators when they are in the city. Lots of stories have circulated about the barracks over the years, and several legislators have moved out of the apartments due to strange occurrences, preferring to obtain their own quarters rather than stay at the converted barracks.

Sadie's Ghost

After the Civil War, the facility and grounds would continue to house American troops and, by all accounts, was the site of the rape and murder of a young black woman referenced only as Sadie. Said to have taken place around 1868, the perpetrator was unfortunately never caught. As the story goes, a group of soldiers was returning from the city after enjoying an evening pass when they happened to hear the bloodcurdling screams of a woman coming from the woods near the barracks. After investigating, they discovered the body of a young black woman, her clothing torn and partially removed, who had been stabbed several times in a rather brutal fashion. The stab wounds were to her lower stomach and genitalia, and her throat had been savagely slashed. Boot prints and one brass button were reportedly found near her body, the button being firmly grasped in her hand as if she had ripped it from her attacker's shirt in the final struggle for her life. The button was recognized as coming from a military uniform, and the barracks were searched in hopes that by finding it, they would find the killer. But the uniform was never found; it was most likely disposed of by the murderer as he fled the scene. The case was closed due to a lack of leads, although I would suspect that given the era in which it happened and the fact that the victim was a young black woman, not much effort was expended to find the killer.

Apparently, the young murder victim, Sadie, wasn't satisfied with the results of the case, because for several years afterward, stories were circulated about a young black girl who could be seen walking the grounds of the barracks, clutching her stomach. Thinking that someone was in distress, a trooper or two would go to investigate only to see the woman fade from sight. One particular incident that was rumored to have taken place was her appearance to the commander of the troops stationed at the barracks. While lying in bed one night, he was awakened by someone standing at the foot of his bed. Thinking an orderly had entered the room due to some difficulty that required his attention, he sat up and asked what was wrong. Getting no reply, he asked several more times, still getting no reply. Aggravated at what he thought was an insubordinate soldier, he got up and struck a match to light the lamp next to his bed. It was in the light of the match that he realized that it wasn't a soldier at all but rather a young black girl. Confused, he finished lighting the lamp and then directed his full attention to the woman. That is when he saw that she was drenched in blood from the waist down, her eyes staring vacantly at him. The legend holds that he rushed to her side, thinking she had been injured and wandered in seeking help, while shouting for his orderly to come help. As he reached her side, she slowly began to fade from sight and took on an almost luminous cast. As both he and the freshly arrived orderly watched in horror, she turned and walked through the wall, disappearing from sight. Both men are reported to have rushed outside, but no trace of the woman could be found. When the men returned to the commander's quarters, no trace of blood could be found on the floors, walls or bedding. This happened for several nights in a row (causing the officer great mental stress, I'm sure), and on the last night she appeared, he had his orderly firmly set in the corner of the room keeping watch. When she appeared, the officer summoned the courage to ask her what she wanted and why she was tormenting him so, to which she uttered just one word: "Help." Perhaps Sadie thought that a direct plea to the officer in charge might get her the justice she never got, bringing peace to her soul. Either way, she never appeared again to the officer, although for many years, she was seen walking the grounds of the barracks clutching her midsection as if in distress.

The Shadow Man

When the state took over the barracks and started renovating the property, stories were told of things happening at the buildings that, while not too terribly spooky, were nonetheless quite strange to the workers. There were stories of disappearing tools that would suddenly reappear out of thin air; boards that were nailed firmly in place unexplainably falling, the nails still driven through them; and lunches that would disappear only to be found outside, the contents of the lunch boxes and bags thrown about the area. More than one worker saw what was described as "shooting balls of light" darting about the rooms during the renovation. But one story stands out above the rest in relation to the apartments where the state legislators live while in the capital: the story of the Shadow Man.

I was first told this story over twenty years ago while in Baton Rouge visiting my brother. While waiting for him to finish up at work, I struck up a conversation with an older gentleman who was waiting to pick up his son from work. He was an extremely nice guy who loved to talk, and he told me that he had previously worked as a maintenance man at the state capitol grounds for a number of years before retiring. We both shared a love of history, and I was interested in his perspective of the Civil War period since he was black and his family had lived there for several generations. The conversation moved to the history of the Pentagon Barracks, and he shared a lot of information with me about the facility that he had learned while working there, most specifically that the place was haunted and quite spooky, especially at night. Although he confessed straight off that he believed in ghosts and didn't want anything to do with them, the things he encountered at the complex didn't really terrify him to the point that he was afraid to work in any of the buildings — with the exception of the Shadow Man at the apartments. He said that the shadowy figure was very menacing and that his one encounter with him was what made him decide to quit the maintenance job and seek early retirement.

He told me that he had been getting one of the apartments ready for an incoming legislator, just making sure that everything was freshly painted and that any items on the work order were completed. Working late so that he could get everything finished that day, he noticed that it was starting to get dark outside, so he turned on the lights in the room where he was working and continued on with what he was doing. He said he kept catching something moving in the shadows of the adjoining room out of the corner of his eye. Thinking that a co-worker had entered the apartment, he called out to them. Getting no reply, he stopped what he was doing and went into the next room, turning on the lights as he entered. No sooner had he turned on the lights than all the light bulbs in the room surged brightly and then immediately burned out. Thinking it was a power surge, he flipped the light switch back off and made a mental note to change the light bulbs before he left that evening. As he turned to leave, he saw what appeared to be the figure of a man dart along the wall, keeping to the shadows. Knowing that no one was there, as he had an unobstructed view of the entire room in the moments before the lights burned out, he thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him. After all, it had been a long, busy day and he was pretty tired, so he shrugged it off and returned to what he was doing.

He finished painting the trim around the doorway, cleaned up the paintbrushes and moved to the next item on the list: repairing the plumbing under the bathroom sink. He lay down on the floor and moved into the cabinet a ways so that he could better access the water lines and was working on removing the leaking line from the sink when he noticed that it was getting darker inside the small bathroom. About that time, he said it felt like something heavy was suddenly sitting on his chest and that he couldn't move. As he started to kick his legs about in a panic while trying to get out from under the sink, something latched onto his lower leg and dragged him from under the cabinet. That is when he first laid eyes on the Shadow Man. Standing over him was a black mass in the shape of a man's body but without any visible features; no eyes, no mouth — just a solid outline of a large man standing over him. He said he was instantly petrified with fear as it was nothing that he had ever seen before and the vibe it was giving off was one of extreme malice. The thing stepped over him, bent down and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of the bathroom, down the hallway and into the main room, where the survival instinct of "fight or flight" kicked in and he started to struggle to get free and to get on his feet. He swiveled around and kicked out with his legs only to see, to his horror, his legs pass right through the legs of the shadowy figure, leaving a "trail of black smoke that sucked back into place as soon as my legs finished passing through it."

Finding his voice, he started shouting for it to let him go, creating "quite a ruckus," as he put it. His shouts and screams attracted the attention of another worker who was working in the building. As the man rushed into the room, thinking that his friend had been injured, he drew up sharply at the sight of the Shadow Man gripping the collar of his co- worker, his eyes wide with disbelief. About that time, the Shadow Man uttered an angry hiss, at which point he physically slung the man by the collar across the room at the co-worker and then turned and darted into the next room, back into the shadows. Regaining his feet, the man looked at his co-worker, at which point both men broke out into a dead run, not stopping until they were completely free of the building.

That neither of the men went back to the building that night is a given. They instead waited until the next morning to reenter the apartment by the light of day, and even then it was only to quickly finish the water line while the other stood guard. They then gathered up their tools, my acquaintance retiring from his job shortly thereafter. He told me that that was the most terrified he had ever been in his life and that he was sure that if his co-worker hadn't rushed in when he did, he wouldn't be alive today to tell me the story. That the Shadow Man was bent on causing him harm was plain to the man, and he even admitted to not being able to sleep well at night, as he was constantly waking and searching the shadows of his bedroom for the Shadow Man. Several other people have reported seeing a shadow figure in and around the apartments, but to my knowledge, no one has have ever had an encounter like that related to me by the gentleman I visited with that day. What it was he couldn't venture to say, only that it was powerful and very menacing. I asked him if he had ever thought about going back there some night and seeing if it was still there, to which he gave me an incredulous look and stated quite emphatically, "Not ever in this lifetime. My momma didn't raise no fool."

The Old Arsenal Museum

Located on the grounds of the state capitol, the Old Arsenal Powder Magazine is one of the surviving structures of Louisiana's largest military complex. Left neglected for years, the structure has been restored and turned into a museum depicting the history of the arsenal.

Arsenals were located all over the United States in the nineteenth century, stretching from border to border. And much like the current military bases we have today, arsenals of that time housed troops, supplies, large amounts of powder and ammunition and everything necessary to operate a military post.

The Baton Rouge arsenal contained a large ordnance warehouse in its early years, but in about 1838, the powder magazine was constructed to provide a safer storage facility for thousands of pounds of gunpowder. Constructed of thick brick walls, the interior contained vaults that held the powder. The magazine was surrounded by a high, thick brick wall that helped provide additional safety for the surrounding area and buildings in the event of a mishap. The arsenal was placed in the hands of the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War, and the powder in the magazine provided the Confederate troops the much needed ammunition with which to fight during the first year of the conflict. Union forces took control of the arsenal and powder magazine on May 9, 1862, when Admiral Farragut and his men captured it with little resistance at all, the Confederate troops having withdrawn from Baton Rouge. The arsenal and powder magazine would stay under Union control for the remainder of the war.

Today, the arsenal has been completely restored and houses the Old Arsenal Museum, which showcases the history of the arsenal and the part it played in the Civil War.

Billy Boy's Ghost

I first heard this story over twenty years ago while unloading my semitrailer at a storage warehouse in Baton Rouge. The forklift operator went to lunch while in the middle of unloading the trailer, so I followed him on down to the break room and visited with him and his fellow workers while they had lunch. It was in October, and Halloween was just around the corner, so naturally our conversations turned to memories of trick-or-treating and then to ghost stories we had heard.

One story that was shared with me was that of the ghost called Billy Boy Blue, who supposedly haunted the grounds around the old powder magazine area. How he got the name no one seemed to know, but it was speculated that the "Blue" part was due to his Union uniform.

As the story goes, after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate soldiers slowly started to make their way home. Emotions still ran high between the returning soldiers and the Union forces stationed at the Baton Rouge Arsenal, partly due to the Union-supported carpetbaggers who descended on the South like a bunch of locusts. Verbal outbursts among the three groups were common, sometimes coming to blows or, in this case, murder.