A Fog of Ghosts

Read about the shade of Dr. Samuel Crawford, the scoundrel who was the only man ever lynched in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, and the slave woman whose appearance foretold a death in the family near Hancock, Maryland. Then there’s the Devil Wind that ripped through Doe Gully, W. Va., a century ago, the unforgettable C&O Canal wedding in Cumberland, Md., the face that scared away the Washington lobbyists, and a dozen other haunting tales set in northeast West Virginia and Western Maryland. Plus “The Dead Redhead,” in both fact and fiction, the saga of the still unidentified redhead whose nude body was found near the Potomac River in 1950. To top things off, there’s a little delving into the reality behind weird tales and why they have such a hold on us, not to forget “Fine Virginia Line,” a Civil War story unlike any other.