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The Singing Soldiers of Constance Street

© Catherine Mezensky

In 1862, when General Benjamin Butler’s troops occupied the city of New Orleans he gave an order that any soldier, Union or Confederate, would be shot if they were found looting. It did not take long for men to be arrested for this crime. Two Union officers were caught and brought to a house on Constance Street, which had become a makeshift jail.

Adam Griffon, the owner of the property, had abandoned Constance Street when Federal troops showed up in the city. The place had been built in 1852, and for a brief time was the scene of fancy parties and balls. The elegant mansion was one of the first occupied by Union troops.

The two officers that had been caught looting coerced some of the guards into giving them whiskey. They spent their time becoming intoxicated and singing one song over and over again. “John Brown’s Body” often rang through the high ceilings of the once fancy rooms. The other occupants of the place probably thought that the men were too drunk to remember another song. In reality, the two “Union” officers were actually deserters from the Confederate army. They feared that they would be executed if they were found out, so they adopted the Unionist song for their deception.

Soon, the deserters learned that all men, not just Confederates, would be executed for looting. The men bribed a guard to give them two pistols.

The next morning, blood was found soaking through the floor to the room below. The two deserters had shot each other through the heart.

When the war was over, the building changed hands many times. It was used for several different factories. Reports of strange activity started just after the war and continued down through the years. Workers in the building often heard the sound of men in boots walking on the third floor.

One night in the 1930s a maintenance man was alone in the (then) factory building, on the second floor. Suddenly, a door opened by itself, and he heard the sound of stomping boots. The noise soon sounded like two pairs of boots. The worker then heard men laughing and the opening lines of “John Brown’s Body”. He ran out of the house and never returned again.

“John Brown’s Body” was heard again and again by people witnessing these specters. Often people on the street would look up and see two uniformed men standing at the attic window, holding liquor bottles.

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