Gettysburg is a place of ghosts. That’s what they say. This town is known to historians and ghost hunters as the promised land for paranormal activity.

There’s the phantom regiment, sometimes heard marching through the streets.

There’s the specter of a little girl at the Tillie Pierce House, often heard playing in the other room, laughing and running around.

There are the cries of agony reported at Penn Hall. The historic college once served as a makeshift hospital during the war. Multiple claims have been made.

In the 1980s, for example, a few college administrators were working late. They took an elevator to the lower portion of Penn Hall. When the elevator doors opened, the administrators saw a room full of apparitions dressed in hospital attire, tending to fallen soldiers.

There are numerous reports of random figures walking battlefields. Noises heard, such as distant drumbeats, or feet marching, or faraway cannonfire. A lady in white, seen roaming streets, or standing in the killing fields.

Well, I don’t believe in ghosts. Never have.

But I have to admit, there is a different vibe in this town. It’s in the air. I cannot describe it. It’s sort of a warm hunch you feel in your belly. A feeling that never leaves you.

“It’s always been this way,” says a woman who has lived in this town for 50-odd years. “When I first moved here, I felt kinda like there were angels all around me. All the time. Watching me. You get used to it.”

Tonight, Bobby and I perform at the historic Majestic Theater, built in 1925. It’s a nice theater. A big marquee, lit with candy-colored neon. Art deco interior. Exquisite popcorn.

But there is also a feeling in this place. A deep-in-your-gut feeling. Weird.

Then again, the land beneath this theater likely served as an impromptu embalming site for thousands of bodies after the battle. The amount of death this parcel has seen is staggering.

So anyway, Bobby and I do our Civil War historic show. We dress in historic clothing. I wear period-correct vest and wool trousers. We fiddle and banjo the music Civil War soldiers would have played. We do our best to honor the their memory.

When the show finishes, everyone lines up to speak with Bobby. He’s a major celebrity in the history world. Theater goers want to thank him for the music he composed for the Ken Burns films. The mayor probably wants to give him the key to the city. Old ladies want him to autograph their historic underwear.

Meanwhile, there is a woman waiting to speak to me. She is with her sister and her friend. Her name is Adeline. They call her “Atch.”

Atch clutches my face in her hands, like a mother might do. And she speaks.

“I saw something while you were performing,” she says.

I’m silent. My face is in her hands. There are tears in this woman’s eyes.

“I was sitting there, and I was watching you, and you were transformed into a little boy. Somehow. Before my very eyes. And I could feel this little boy’s pain and sorrow. I could feel his little heart breaking after all the trauma he’d been through.

There are tears in my eyes now, too.

“And then I saw that same little boy in the theater seat next to me. He was just as real as you are now. But this time he was watching you perform. And he was smiling so big, watching his adult self perform. He wasn’t smiling arrogantly, but just joyfully. Because the pain was over. There was no more pain. And now that little boy is at perfect peace.

“You are so important to God,” she says, still clutching my face. “You are so loved. You are never alone. Never forget this.”

And then she was gone.

This really is quite a town.