The Haunted Baladerry Inn, Gettysburg: A Union Field Hospital, Lover Boy Geoffrey and the Ghosts by the Gazebo

The Baladerry Inn sits at the end of Hospital Road on the southern edge of Gettysburg, about three minutes from the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center and close to Little Round Top and Devil’s Den. It is a peaceful place: a brick 1812 farmhouse and a carriage house on 3.7 acres, with a terrace, a hot tub, a fire pit and a gazebo, and a Great Room with an original brick fireplace and beamed ceiling.

During the Battle of Gettysburg the farmhouse was used as a field hospital by the Union Army of the Potomac, and that history is behind its place on our list of the haunted hotels in Gettysburg. The inn’s current website does not mention ghosts, but former owners Judy and Kenny Caudill kept a binder of stories from guests and staff, and some of those stories have become Gettysburg favorites.

The ghosts of Baladerry Inn

Geoffrey, the Lover Boy

The Baladerry’s best-known ghost is a gentleman called Geoffrey. Staff nicknamed him Lover Boy because of his interest in women, and blondes in particular. Women staying in what was then the Primrose Room reported feeling someone rub their feet and hearing a man’s voice singing softly in their ear. A few guests went further and said an invisible someone had climbed into bed with them.

Nobody knows who Geoffrey was supposed to be. He does not fit the field hospital story at all, which is part of his charm.

The woman at the foot of the bed

In what was the Marigold Room, guests saw a woman standing silently at the foot of the bed. A re-enactor who stayed during the November Remembrance Day weekend told a related story: she brought period jewelry for her costume and kept her vintage pieces in a separate bag. When she came back to her room, the vintage jewelry had been taken out and laid neatly on top of the bag it belonged in.

National Geographic’s travel writer heard another version from Judy Caudill herself. Asked by a visiting investigator who said he worked for the FBI whether she believed in ghosts, she said “not really”. He told her a portly woman in a long dress and apron, with her hair in a bun, was standing in the room with them.

The soldiers in the photograph

The most famous piece of Baladerry evidence is a guest photograph that appears to show Confederate soldiers in uniform: two seated near the French doors and two standing just outside. One seems to wear a black armband, which some Confederates wore after Stonewall Jackson’s death in May 1863.

As with any old ghost photo, reflections in glass doors are the obvious explanation, but it is the image people still ask about.

Soldiers by the gazebo and the tennis court story

Guests have reported soldiers on the grounds after dark, especially near the gazebo, and a woman some think was a nurse wandering the house. Older stories say the haunting comes from seven Confederate soldiers buried under the inn’s old tennis court.

We could not find any record of burials on this property, and since the house was a Union hospital the claim is hard to square with history. Battlefield histories do record eight Confederates buried beside the barn of a different farm, Michael Bushman’s, on the other side of the battlefield, which may be where the story began.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The Great Room: The large hall with the original brick fireplace and beamed ceiling, used to treat wounded soldiers and civilians after the battle. It is now the inn’s gathering and breakfast room.
• Historic 1812 rooms: The Sadie Buschman, Tillie Pierce and Jennie Wade Rooms are in the oldest part of the house and are the best match for the old stories.
• Main house rooms: The Robert E. Lee and George Meade Rooms and the O’Gara Suite are in the main house close to the Great Room.
• The terrace and French doors: Where the famous soldier photograph was taken. Sit out here after dark with the lights low.
• The gazebo: The spot most guests mention for figures on the grounds at night.

History of Baladerry Inn

The oldest section of the Baladerry Inn was built in 1812 on the Bushman farm, as a home for the tenant farmer. It later became the home of the Bushman family’s son, and the house was enlarged over the years.

In July 1863 the Union Army of the Potomac held the ground south and east of Gettysburg, and the farms behind its lines became field hospitals. A 1914 War Department tablet at the end of the inn’s lane records that the Twelfth Corps division hospitals were at the George Bushman house on July 2, 1863, and treated about 1,200 wounded before closing in early August. A second tablet nearby marks the Second Corps hospitals, set up about 600 yards southeast of the house, which treated 2,200 Union and 952 Confederate wounded. The large hall now called the Great Room is where wounded men are said to have been treated and amputations carried out.

That means the Baladerry was a Union hospital first and foremost, not the Confederate hospital our earlier page described, though wounded Confederate prisoners were also cared for at the neighboring Second Corps site. Keep that in mind when you hear the Confederate soldier stories.

The house was converted to a bed and breakfast in 1992, and for many years it was run by Judy and Kenny Caudill, who kept the binder of guests’ ghost stories. In March 2025 the estate, with its main house, carriage house and 3.7 acres, was listed for sale. The inn has since been refreshed and continues to take bookings: the rooms now carry names from Gettysburg history, such as Sadie Buschman, Tillie Pierce, Joshua Chamberlain, John Buford and John Burns, and the grounds have gained a barrel sauna and a pickleball court.

Because the room names changed, the old Primrose and Marigold Room stories no longer point to a room you can book by name. If you want to sleep where the oldest stories began, ask for one of the rooms in the 1812 part of the house.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for one of the historic 1812 rooms (Sadie Buschman, Tillie Pierce or Jennie Wade) when you book.
• It is out of town, so plan on driving: downtown Gettysburg and its ghost walks are about six minutes away.
• Spend an evening on the terrace and by the gazebo, where most outdoor sightings are reported, and look at the French doors where the soldier photograph was taken.
• The inn hosts weddings and events, so check whether one is booked for your dates if you want a quiet night.
• Little Round Top and Devil’s Den are a few minutes away; go at dusk, then come back for the fire pit.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Farnsworth House Inn: the sharpshooters’ house on Baltimore Street
• Hotel Gettysburg (Gettysburg Hotel): the hotel on Lincoln Square and its nurse ghost Rachel
• Cashtown Inn: the 1797 Confederate headquarters west of town
• Haunted places in Gettysburg: Devil’s Den, the orphanage and the battlefield
• Haunted hotels in Pennsylvania
• Haunted hotels in Gettysburg

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.

• Baladerry Inn: official site
• Baladerry Inn: rooms
• abc27: Historic Gettysburg estate listed for sale (2025)
• National Geographic: Ghosts of Gettysburg
• Destination Gettysburg: Baladerry Inn
• HMdb: Field Hospitals, Twelfth Corps tablet (Hospital Road)
• HMdb: Field Hospitals, Second Corps tablet (Hospital Road)
• Stone Sentinels: Michael Bushman farm

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