Explore Franklin's Paranormal History
Explore the most haunted locations in Franklin. Discover ghost stories, paranormal history, and spine-chilling tales from one of America's bloodiest battlefields.
Franklin, Tennessee witnessed one of the bloodiest five hours in American military history during the Battle of Franklin in 1864. Nearly 10,000 soldiers fell on a single November night, and their spirits are said to remain, forever bound to this picturesque Southern town.
The haunted places below are stops on Ghost City Tours' Franklin ghost tours — guided walks where our local storytellers bring this history to life after dark.
Explore the Paranormal
Discover the dark history and ghostly encounters at Franklin's most notorious haunted sites
Showing 9 of 11 locations
One of downtown Franklin's oldest landmarks, the c.1820 Perkins–Howarth House has sheltered families, Civil War occupants, schoolgirls, and office workers. It has also collected two centuries of ghost stories, from a pale woman at an upstairs window to falling books and shaking chandeliers.
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Tennessee's oldest Episcopal church survived Union occupation, served as a hospital after the Battle of Franklin, and was reduced to a stable before a congregation of twenty-one reclaimed it. Its haunting is a quiet one: footsteps, stillness, and the feeling that the nave remembers.
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By day, McCreary’s is one of Franklin’s most inviting pubs. After the doors are locked, employees report voices with no one present, glasses falling untouched, and shadows that vanish when you look straight at them. No one knows who—or what—may be responsible.
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Franklin’s oldest surviving public building has hosted Masons, a president, Chickasaw leaders, Union soldiers, and the wounded of the Battle of Franklin. Two centuries later, its Gothic windows still reveal little, and its reported shadows vanish before anyone can say who cast them.
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By day, the house at 118 Third Avenue North is full of music lessons. But employees and children report a woman in an upstairs rocking chair, footsteps in empty rooms, and a handprint that keeps returning to the glass above the door—often attributed to Sallie Carter, Franklin’s Confederate spy.
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Named the Second-Most Terrifying Place in America by the Travel Channel, the Lotz House sits at ground zero of the Battle of Franklin. With bloodstained floors, cannonball holes, and spirits of soldiers and children still walking its halls, this is Franklin's most haunted location.
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With over a thousand bullet holes scarring its walls, the Carter House bears witness to some of the Civil War's bloodiest combat. The ghost of Tod Carter, who came home to die in his childhood bedroom, still haunts these grounds alongside his sister Annie and his phantom warhorse Rosencrantz.
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Called Tennessee's most haunted house, Carnton Mansion became a Confederate hospital after the Battle of Franklin. With bloodstained floors, the ghosts of five Confederate generals, and the spirit of Carrie McGavock herself still walking the halls, Carnton is a place where death never truly departed.
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Once the headquarters of the Union Army and later a makeshift hospital, the Old Franklin City Hall is haunted by the soldiers who fought and died here. Witnesses have seen ghostly figures in blue uniforms standing on the balcony, still watching over the town they fought to defend.
Read Full StoryDiscover the dark history and supernatural forces that make Franklin one of America's most haunted cities
The Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, created one of America's most haunted landscapes. In just five hours of combat, nearly 10,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or went missing. Six Confederate generals died that night, more than in any other single battle of the Civil War.
The Carnton Plantation served as the largest field hospital during and after the battle. Nearly 1,500 wounded and dying soldiers were brought to the home, and four of the fallen generals were laid out on the back porch. The blood that soaked into the wooden floors remains visible today.
Throughout downtown Franklin, nearly every antebellum building was used to treat the wounded or house the dead. The Carter House, which sat at the center of the fighting, still bears bullet holes in its walls and is considered one of the most haunted locations in Tennessee.
The concentration of violent death in such a small area has made Franklin a paranormal hotspot. Ghost hunters and mediums report overwhelming spiritual energy, with many visitors experiencing unexplained phenomena including phantom cannon fire, the smell of gunpowder, and apparitions of soldiers still searching for their fallen comrades.
200+
Documented Hauntings
225+
Years of History
30+
Haunted Locations
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