Cultural Background Storyteller's Cabin
			Written by Craig Dominey and Scott Dupoy One warm spring day, I left my home in Washington, D.C. and took a drive through the rolling, peaceful farm country in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. I worked in the city as a tax accountant, but most of my co-workers didn't know about my secret hobby - I was a Civil War collector. Ever since I was a child, I had collected old Civil War books, maps, clothing, and in later years, weapons. Now as a middle-aged man, my interest had grown to what some would call an obsession. Although it's hard to believe today, this peaceful Virginia valley was the scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the war. Driving through this historic land not only satisfied my hunger for history, but calmed my nerves far away from the hustle and bustle of home. Some folks say that ghosts wander the earth in places where horrible deaths took place, their lives suddenly ripped away from them before they knew what happened. So it's no wonder that so many Civil War ghost stories come from the Shenandoah Valley. But the human tragedy of the war didn't weigh heavily on my heart at that time. Although I knew that many young men had lost their lives, the war to me was a fascinating chess game of strategies, maps, attacks and counter-attacks. So while I found these ghost stories intriguing, my interest was in studying battlefields, not myths and tall tales. That is, until I met the mysterious woman on the roadside. I was so carried away with my travels that day that I stayed in the valley until nightfall. I gazed with wonderment at the bright, full moon overhead. The winding road suddenly plunged into a long, dense stretch of woods, and if it wasn't for that bright moon, I certainly would have been swallowed up in the black darkness. A few miles into the woods, the moonlight faintly revealed a figure running beside the road in the distance. At first I thought it was a runner getting a bit of exercise for the night. But as I drove closer, I was surprised to see that it was a young woman, dressed not in jogging clothes, but in a long, dark blue dress with a white apron hanging over it. The dress looked like something women wore in another time - the 1800s, I guessed. Her hair was pulled back tightly from her strikingly beautiful face - a face that I noticed wasn't flushed from her run, but was as white as snow. She was obviously in a great hurry, running swiftly beside my car, oblivious to my presence. Since we were miles from any town, I pulled over and asked if she needed any help. "Why yes," she answered breathlessly, jumping into the passenger's seat. "I'm on my way to meet some friends, and find myself in need of some quick transport." She seemed excited and a bit nervous as she immediately looked behind her, as if she was afraid someone was following. -1-
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