22 July 2009 Photo: The Colonial

I stayed with my friend in DC for two nights and this is the door of her building. When I went to look up the history of the building this is what I found.

The Colonial as it is called was a private Girls Seminary at the outbreak of the Civil War. On the day of the Battle of Bull Run, (or Manassas) many Georgetown citizens went down to the riverside to view the battle, almost as if it were a romantic lark. It was hot on July 21, 1861 and the battle was brutal and bloody.

They brought the wounded and the dying up the hill to the Seminary which was immediately transformed into a hospital for the duration of the war. There are still neighbors who’ve claimed to have heard and been haunted by the ghostly screams and moans of the dying soldiers in the Colonial.

It is kind of creepy because I happened to be there on the date of the battle. I was wondering what those screams were I heard in the middle of the night...