The Headless Horseman of Stones River

In the early morning hours of December 31, 1862, Union Colonel Julius Peter Garesché was decapitated by a Confederate cannonball during the Battle of Stones River. His violent death—foretold in ominous warnings and eerie family prophecies—would soon echo in more ways than one. For in the decades since, visitors to the battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, have claimed to see a headless figure in blue silently riding the mist-covered glades near the site of his fall.

But who was Colonel Garesché? And how did his tragic story become entwined with one of America’s oldest ghost story archetypes—the Headless Horseman?

In this episode, we explore the origins of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the centuries-old folklore that inspired it, and the chilling real-life legend that grew out of the blood-soaked fields of Middle Tennessee. From Garesché’s Catholic faith and battlefield premonitions to the enduring tale of a spectral rider haunting Stones River, this is a story where American history and haunting legend collide.

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