Smell of Death

Thursday, September 4, 2008, 10:57 p.m.

This was relayed to me by my co-worker and fellow night auditor:

Courtney stepped outside the lobby through the private, side door and was immediately assaulted by a foul, rotting smell which overpowered her.  She told me:  "Carolyn, it turned my stomach."  Courtney then walked down the breezeway, which is a covered walkway located between the office and the northern wing of the hotel.  When she came back to the side, private entrance into the lobby, she noticed that the foul odor was gone.

I spoke at length with Courtney about this incident and she described the same, sickening stench that I once smelled in this same location several months ago.  I conveyed to her my thoughts on this, that it might be a slip or an opening in a window of time, and that we were both smelling rotting dead bodies.  She agreed with my description of the smell and that it matched her thoughts as well.

Considering that there was considerable fighting on the hotel property during the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as in the railroad cut which runs the length of the hotel, and in all the fields which surround the hotel, it makes sense that there would be many dead soldiers either on the property itself or surrounding the entire area.