Haunted hotel guide · Savannah, Georgia

The Haunted Marshall House, Savannah: Ghosts, Rooms and History

Savannah’s oldest hotel spent the Civil War and two yellow fever epidemics as a hospital. Guests say some of its patients never checked out.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

4.8/5Haunted Rooms Score

1851Year opened

Room 414Most requested room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Marshall House has stood on East Broughton Street since 1851, and it is the hotel most people mean when they talk about haunted Savannah. Built as a hotel from day one, it was taken over as a Union hospital after General Sherman captured the city in December 1864, and it served as a hospital twice more during the yellow fever epidemics of the 19th century. It closed in 1957, sat with its upper floors empty for four decades, and reopened after a full restoration in 1999.

That restoration is where many of the stories start. Workers are said to have found human bones beneath the floorboards in an area once used for surgery, and since then guests have reported children running through the halls, faucets turning on by themselves, a soldier in the lobby holding his own arm and a lingering smell on the fourth floor that no cleaning will shift. The hotel does not hide any of it: it publishes guest ghost stories on its own website.

The ghosts of The Marshall House

The Civil War soldiers

The most famous figure at the Marshall House is a Union soldier seen in the lobby and the corridors cradling an arm that is no longer attached, as if looking for someone to sew it back on. Guests have also described men in Civil War uniforms walking the halls and assumed they were costumed actors, only to be told the hotel has none.

These reports tie straight back to 1864 and 1865, when Union surgeons worked in the building. Many wounded men died here, and amputation was the standard treatment for shattered limbs. Some guests describe waking with one arm stretched out across the covers, as if a nurse had been taking their pulse.

The children of the fourth floor

Night after night, guests report the patter of small feet racing down the long, narrow hallways, a child’s giggle, and the sound of marbles or a rubber ball rolling along the floor. One guest on a lower floor described marbles and laughter outside a courtyard-view room. In one of the strangest stories, a mother said her young son came out of the bathroom saying another boy had bitten him, with a small bite mark to show for it.

Nobody knows who these children are. Yellow fever killed many young people in Savannah, and the hotel was a hospital during two outbreaks, which is the explanation most tour guides offer.

Rooms 214, 314 and 414

When the hotel reopened in 1999, staff reported a foul smell and an oppressive feeling in three rooms stacked one above the other: 214, 314 and 414. Room 414 is said to be the worst, with an odor that comes and goes no matter how the room is cleaned. Room 314 is sometimes called the soldier’s room. Room 306 and the fourth-floor corridor also come up in guest accounts of loud crashes in the early hours.

Mary Marshall and Joel Chandler Harris

Mary Leaver Marshall opened the hotel on land inherited from her father, and her portrait hangs behind the front desk. One story tells of a little girl who pointed at the painting and said she had just seen that woman in the hallway.

Joel Chandler Harris, the author of the Uncle Remus stories, stayed at the hotel, and some guests say they have heard the clack of an old typewriter coming from the room he used. Staff and guests also mention a bathroom stall that locks itself and faucets that switch on in empty rooms.

The phantom surgeries

The space believed to have been the hospital’s operating room is now used for events. Staff and guests have described hearing what sound like surgeons at work there late at night. It is the most dramatic story at the hotel and, like the bones under the floor, it is told rather than documented, but it is the one tour guides on Broughton Street never leave out.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 414: The most requested room in the hotel, with reports of footsteps, a bathroom door that closes itself and a smell that will not go away.
• Rooms 214 and 314: Directly below 414 and named alongside it since the 1999 reopening; 314 is linked to a soldier’s spirit.
• The fourth-floor hallway: Where most guests hear running children and rolling balls after midnight. Several reviewers say the whole floor feels busy.
• The lobby: Look for the portrait of Mary Marshall behind the front desk, and keep an eye out for the one-armed soldier.
• Room 306: Mentioned by guests who heard heavy crashes in the hall in the early morning.

History of The Marshall House

Mary L. Marshall built the hotel in 1851 on Broughton Street, then Savannah’s main shopping street, because she believed the growing port city badly needed somewhere respectable for visitors to stay. It was purpose-built as a hotel, with iron verandas over the sidewalk that are still the building’s signature.

When Sherman’s army marched into Savannah in December 1864, Union forces occupied the Marshall House and ran it as a hospital until the end of the war. It was pressed into hospital use again during two of the yellow fever epidemics that swept the city in the 19th century, when thousands of Savannahians died.

The hotel closed in 1895 and reopened in 1899. In 1933 it became the Gilbert Hotel, and in 1957 it closed again after failing to meet state fire codes. For the next four decades the ground floor held shops while the upper floors stood empty.

A restoration began in 1998, and the Marshall House reopened in 1999 as Savannah’s oldest hotel. Original staircases, wood floors, brick walls, fireplaces and the long cast-iron veranda were kept. It is the restoration that produced the best-known story of all: that workers found bones under the floorboards of the old surgery, long assumed to be amputated limbs. The hotel and local guides repeat the story; we have not seen a published record of the find, so treat it as Savannah lore.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book early for October and St. Patrick’s Day, when the hotel fills months ahead.
• After you book, call and ask for Room 414, or anything on the fourth floor. Be polite and flexible: requests are noted, not promised.
• Ask the front desk about the portrait of Mary Marshall and the stories staff have heard.
• Step out onto the iron veranda after dark. Broughton Street is quieter at night and the view down the street is the best in the building.
• Pair your stay with a walking ghost tour; several start within a few blocks, and many stop outside the hotel.
• Light sleepers might bring earplugs. Not for ghosts: Broughton Street has bars nearby on weekends.

More haunted hotels nearby

• 17Hundred90 Inn and the Kehoe House: two more famous Savannah haunts on our full city guide
• Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston: a haunted 1924 hotel about two hours up the coast
• Battery Carriage House Inn, Charleston: one of the most haunted inns in the South
• Casa Monica Hotel, St. Augustine: a haunted Spanish Revival landmark in Florida
• Haunted hotels in Georgia
• Haunted hotels in Savannah

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• The Marshall House: Ghost Hunting in Savannah?
• Ghost City Tours: The Ghosts of the Marshall House Hotel
• Explore Georgia: Spend an evening in one of Georgia's haunted hotels
• Yahoo Lifestyle: 5 Haunted Hotels in Savannah, Georgia
• Savannah First-Timer: Haunted hotels in Savannah
• Trolley Tours: Savannah ghost stories

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