Forty-five years ago a writer for the Selma Times-Journal named Kathryn Tucker Windham published a book of old ghost stories entitled 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. This book spawned six additional volumes of ghost stories which have served to inspire the curiosity, and perhaps haunt the dreams, of schoolchildren in the South for decades. This series of nightcaches is inspired by the 13 Alabama Ghosts.
Completed in 1860, Carlisle Hall (also known as Kenworthy Hall) is located on Alabama Highway 14 near Marion, Alabama. The original owner, Edward Kenworthy Carlisle, was a large landholder and a cotton factor, and wanted a home indicative of his family's social standing. His daughter Anne Carlisle was born and grew up in the hall, and her favorite place was the four-story square tower. The story goes that Anne loved a neighbor boy, who was among the first to volunteer from Perry County to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. They had discussed plans for the future, but they felt they could not marry until the war had ended.
Anne had a near fanatical belief that if her lover survived his first battle, he would survive the war. She asked that he send his personal servant, a slave named Big Tom, back with news after his first battle. He was to come riding back with a white flag if the young soldier had made it through the fighting all right. If not, Big Tom would carry a red flag. Anne would watch from the tower to wait for Big Tom to return.
After weeks of waiting, Anne heard a horse approaching, and threw down her lunch tray to hurry to the window. As she saw Big Tom approaching with a dark red flag, she screamed and flung herself over the stairwell to the hall three floors below. By the time he father arrived at her side, she was dead. Some say that her cries can still be heard in the tower as she goes to join her lover in death.