Does soldier's ghost haunt the Robinson Creek Bridge near Tunnel Springs, Alabama?

Robinson Creek Bridge.

An interesting Facebook memory popped up in my feed on Monday, reminding me of a trip that I took six years ago to a supposedly haunted bridge near Tunnel Springs.

Before I get into that I should say a few words about George Buster Singleton. Growing up, I was an avid reader of Singleton’s weekly newspaper column in The Monroe Journal. Singleton was a self-styled “ghost hunter,” and he often wrote about ghosts and other local legends in his columns, which appeared in the newspaper for more than 30 years.

One ghostly location that Singleton wrote about from time to time was the old wooden bridge across Robinson Creek, not far from Old Scotland Presbyterian Church, northwest of Tunnel Springs. This bridge is located on a dirt road known as the John Shannon Road, which runs north off the Old Scotland Church Road. In his newspaper column, Singleton would often recount stories about how this bridge was supposedly haunted by the ghost of a wounded Confederate soldier.

The story goes that during the Civil War this wounded and sick Rebel soldier camped at the bridge for four or five months. He kept himself alive by eating wild berries and catching fish out of the creek. Travelers along this road would see this soldier early in the mornings and late in the evenings, walking down the narrow road near the bridge, that is, until one day he disappeared, never to be seen again.

Years later, long after the war ended, witnesses reported seeing the soldier’s ghost, dressed in a torn and dirty uniform, walking west toward the bridge that he used as a campsite. Some say that they’ve seen his ghost walking across the bridge, and he’s never seen walking eastward, always towards the west. Others have reported standing on the bridge and smelling the odor of cooking food.

On a January Sunday afternoon six years ago, my wife and son and I climbed in the truck and ventured up to Old Scotland. I’d never been to the bridge in person before, and my wife had never seen the historic Old Scotland Church. All of this was new to my then nine-year-old son, who is always up for any type of adventurous road trip.

We got to the bridge around two o’clock, parked off the side of the road and took a long look around. Robinson Creek is about 20 yards wide at the point where it passes under the bridge, and it is easy to imagine someone camping on the wide sandy banks near the bridge. As far as I could tell, no one had been there for a while except for the raccoon that had left his small tracks on the creek bank.

On the way home, we stopped for a few minutes to get an up-close look at the Old Scotland Presbyterian Church, which was built in 1823. Singleton often wrote about this church in his columns and told stories of people who reportedly heard bagpipes playing when no one else was around. We also took a few minutes to explore the old cemetery beside the church, which contains some of the oldest marked graves in our part of the country.

In the end, we didn’t spot any ghosts or hear any bagpipes during that trip but we did have a wild hog run out in the road in front of us on the road leading up to the church. Perhaps one day, I’ll venture back up to the old bridge and have another look around. Maybe I’ll go late in the evening or early in the morning. In either case, I won’t make the trip alone.