Carnton

Carnton is the house Randal McGavock built outside Franklin, Tennessee, in 1826, on a farm worked by people the family enslaved. The Battle of Franklin Trust runs it as a museum today.

The Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, and Carnton became the largest Confederate field hospital. About 300 wounded men were treated inside, and at least 150 died the first night.

The bodies of 4 Confederate generals, Patrick Cleburne, John Adams, Otho Strahl, and Hiram Granbury, were laid out on the back porch. Blood stains remain in the floors of the room used for surgery.

John and Carrie McGavock set aside 2 acres beside the house in 1866, and nearly 1,500 Confederate dead were reburied there. It is the largest privately owned military cemetery in the country.

The Tennessee State Library and Archives calls the McGavock house the most haunted building in the state. Its exhibit records reports of generals pacing the porches, phantom gunfire, and moans from the graveyard.

Tour guides and visitors describe a woman in a long dark dress on the back porch and at the windows, and they name her as Carrie McGavock. Others report soldiers walking the fields.

Guided house tours run 7 days a week, with the last at 4 pm, and a separate tour covers slavery at Carnton. The grounds and cemetery stay open until 5 pm.