The Haunted Kennesaw House | Marietta, GA

Posted: 11.15.2024 | Updated: 11.15.2024

The Kennesaw House, located in the heart of Marietta, GA, has the luxury of being one of the oldest buildings in the city. When fires during the 1850s destroyed homes and businesses, it remained resilient and strong.

During its early days, it housed cotton and even people. But when war enveloped the North and South, the Kennesaw House would become home to something it could never imagine: the dying and the dead tainting every room and staining every floorboard.

What emerged from the carnage was unimaginable suffering to those who still linger.

Where else would you find them but in one of the oldest buildings in the city?

Let us roll up our sleeves and dive into these wounds of time, a scalpel in our hand to cut away at the truth and the legend. There are more haunted houses in Georgia than just this one. For those of you yearning for more spooks and scares, book our Atlanta tour, Atlanta Ghosts.

Home to the terminus of Georgia’s railway system, the state capital is a center of terrifying hauntings and unexplained ghostly activity.

Is The Kennesaw House Haunted?

The Kennesaw House was instrumental to the war effort during the Civil War. It had survived the fires of the 1850s and was being used as a hospital and morgue for the Confederate Army. Since then, rumors have circulated that hundreds of souls reside within the house's walls.

Are the rumors true? There is only one way to find out.

A House With Many Names

It may surprise you to know that the Kennesaw House did not originally start as a house. It wasn’t even built as a house. What would end up becoming the Kennesaw House was a cotton warehouse built by the first mayor of Mariette, John Glover, in 1845.

The warehouse was conveniently built right on the train tracks so Glover’s cotton could be shipped to Chattanooga, Atlanta, and even Charleston.

In 1855, a Massachusetts businessman by the name of Dix Fletcher bought the warehouse from Glover for $12,000, nearly $400,000 if it was purchased today. After a bit of renovating, the warehouse opened as the Fletcher House, a fine hotel for weary travelers and the like.

Fletcher saw great success until the onslaught of the Civil War when the Confederate Army used the hotel as a makeshift hospital and morgue.

By 1864, Union forces led by General Sherman had control of Atlanta along with Marietta. He set up his headquarters at Fletcher House and repaid the hospitality by sparing the hotel while setting fire to the rest of the city.

By 1867, any damage caused by the war to the hotel had been repaired, and the newly named Kennesaw House was ready to take in weary travelers.

Surprisingly, the greatest legacy that the Kennesaw House has left behind is not its name or its ghosts but an unsuspecting room on the second floor that launched one of the most daring military raids of the Civil War.

The Great Locomotive Chase

James Andrew was a spy for the Union Army when he decided to spend the night at the Kennesaw House with 18 other disguised Union soldiers in 1862. His room looked right out on the tracks, which was convenient since he planned on stealing a train the next morning.

Andrews and his raiders traveled to the town of Kennesaw the next morning. While Confederate troops were off eating breakfast, they stole the locomotive General and headed for Chattanooga.

The goal was to cause as much destruction as possible to bridges, tracks, telegraph wires and switches as they traveled to Tennessee. 

On paper, it was a flawless plan. The damage would cause mass disruption to the Confederate's supply chain to other states, a decisive victory for the Union.

But in practice, it was a disaster.

The most Andrew and his men could achieve was cutting telegraph wires. Dismantling tracks was discovered to be a slow process, time they could not afford to lose. Bridges were an entirely different matter, with the wood being too wet from the rain to burn properly.

The Raiders eventually abandoned the General 18 miles out of Chattanooga after running out of fuel. Everyone ended up captured, and Andrew, along with eight others, was hanged. The remaining men either escaped captivity or remained prisoners of war until they were exchanged.

Those who survived were the first men ever to receive the Medal of Honor in American history.

But there were those in the war who weren’t so lucky. It’s one thing to die with honor and die honorably. But what about those who didn’t? Those who died on the cold floors and hard beds of Kennesaw House were surrounded by the stench of blood and death.

The Ghosts of Kennesaw House

It is hard to imagine that over 700 ghosts reside in one place. Could it even house 100 people when it was a hotel? But given that the building was both a hospital and morgue during the Civil War, it’s not without reason to think that a place soaked with death and dismay could house so many spirits.

Imagine what the room service bill is like!

Ever since the building was converted into the Marietta Museum of History, many visitors have mentioned seeing the spirits as having many distinct inhabitants.

Many children have reported seeing the apparition of a woman in an antebellum-style dress, who would often smile at them before disappearing. Some think this spirit might be that of Dix Fletcher’s wife.

Dan Cox, the former director of the museum, has even had a few run-ins with ghosts. He was talking with his wife one day when, out of the corner of his eye, he could see a man dressed in a cream-colored coat. The figure promptly vanished. Cox believed the man to have been a doctor, possibly even during the Civil War.

But perhaps the most horrifying ghost story to come from the Kennesaw House involves a little elevator trip to Hell.

The Elevator From Hell

Now, the small details of this story change depending on who tells it. Some say it happened on the third floor, others in the basement. Some say it happened to museum visitors, others to hotel guests.

But the visceral, raw reaction and sight are always the same.

The story goes that a group of people used the elevator, as they tend to do. But when the doors opened, what awaited them was not a hallway but a bloodbath.

The hallway was filled with screaming and dying men with bullet wounds or nearly hacked-off limbs. Doctors soaked with sweat and blood. The group hurried back to their original floor and asked if a reenactment was taking place in the building.

No one had a clue what they were talking about. 

When they returned to the floor afterward, the carnage was gone.

All that remained was the memories in their minds, ghosts of the past.

Haunted Atlanta

The horrors that went on in Kennesaw House are enough to fill several hundred lifetimes. As for the several hundred spirits that remain, let them one day find the peace to move on. Until then, the city of Atlanta has plenty more ghosts to offer you. All you need to do is book a tour with our Atlanta Ghost tour Atlanta Ghosts.

There’s also much more to read on our blog for more content on Atlanta’s most haunted places! We always have new, exciting, and terrifying stories to tell, so make sure to come back often. 

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Sources:

https://www.mariettahistory.org/galleries/kennesaw-house

https://www.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Kennesaw-House-James-Friedrich.pdf

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=70102

https://www.mohhc.org/andrews-raiders/

https://travelcobb.org/8-spooky-spots-halloween-spirit/

https://www.marietta.com/haunted-places-in-marietta-ga-the-kennesaw-house

https://lakeallatoona.com/200908/ghosts-in-kennesaw-house-on-marietta-square

https://gainjuryadvocates.com/700-ghosts-of-kennesaw-house/