Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainConfederate burial ground in a Whitesburg hollow known as Graveyard Hollow, where dozens of Civil War soldiers from the April 1865 Battle of Whitesburg were interred and phantom cavalry rides are said to echo on foggy nights.
Ohio Street (off Ohio Ave), Whitesburg, KY 41858
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public cemetery within residential Westwood neighborhood.
Access
Limited Access
Hillside cemetery in a residential hollow; uneven ground, some sections overgrown near older Confederate section.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1842 · Confederate burial ground from Civil War field hospital near Sandlick Creek · Site connected to the Second Battle of Whitesburg, April 16, 1865 — one of the last Civil War engagements in eastern Kentucky · Contains graves of soldiers from Col. Benjamin E. Caudill's 13th Kentucky Cavalry · Col. L.H.N. Salyers, commander at Gettysburg, buried here · Restored by Col. Ben E. Caudill Camp #1629, Sons of Confederate Veterans
Westwood Cemetery occupies a hollow in the Westwood neighborhood of Whitesburg, the county seat of Letcher County, Kentucky. The area has been known as Graveyard Hollow since the mid-19th century, because cemeteries ring the community — some with grave markers encroaching near the edges of residential lots and streets.
The oldest section, catalogued as Sandlick Creek Cemetery (also known as Old Holler Cemetery and Old Graveyard Hollow), dates to at least 1842, the year Whitesburg was officially founded on land offered by Stephen Hiram Hogg. During the Civil War, a Confederate military hospital operated near where Sandlick Creek emptied into the North Fork of the Kentucky River. Soldiers who died there were buried in this cemetery. The site was associated with Col. Benjamin E. Caudill's 13th Kentucky Cavalry (originally the Harlan Battalion), and the property was owned by John A. Caudill, father of Col. Caudill, who used his bottom land as a training ground and campsite for Confederate forces in the region.
Two Civil War engagements occurred at Whitesburg. The first took place in December 1862 when Major Blankenship of the Harlan Battalion attacked a Union position after crossing Pine Mountain. The second — and historically significant final-days engagement — occurred on April 16, 1865, just days after General Lee's surrender at Appomattox. The men of the 10th Kentucky Mounted Rifles (later reorganized as the 13th Kentucky Cavalry) faced off against what had been the Harlan Battalion (reorganized as the 47th Kentucky Infantry, then the Three Forks Battalion) in the Westwood area. This made the Second Battle of Whitesburg one of the last Civil War engagements fought in eastern Kentucky.
For decades the Confederate section of the cemetery was neglected and overgrown. The Col. Ben E. Caudill Camp #1629 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans undertook restoration efforts, marking more than 1,300 Confederate soldiers and veterans across Kentucky since the 1980s. Many graves in the Sandlick section bear only the Southern Cross insignia with 'Unknown Soldier' because hospital records were burned by Union troops. Col. L.H.N. Salyers, a commander at Gettysburg, is buried on the opposite side of the hollow under a marker inscribed 'Deo Vindice.'
Today the cemetery sits within an active residential neighborhood, with graves literally at the edges of backyards and streets — a unique and somewhat eerie arrangement that preserves the 'Graveyard Hollow' atmosphere that gave the area its name.
Sources
The ghost tradition at Graveyard Hollow in Whitesburg is inseparable from its Civil War history. Residents of Westwood have passed down accounts of hearing musket fire in the dead of night with no living source, and on foggy, rainy evenings, some claim to have seen what appears to be a full Confederate cavalry troop riding through the neighborhood on ghostly horses, preparing for a battle that ended over 160 years ago.
According to Kentucky Tennessee Living's historical series on Letcher County haunted places, 'Ghostly tales of riders on their steeds galloping through Westwood and sounds of the battle can be heard as echoes from a time long gone by. There were tales that when the weather was rainy and foggy you could see the ghostly mounts as they were preparing for battle. You could hear the gun shots of the muskets as they rang through the air.'
The October 2016 issue of The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg's local newspaper, ran a feature inviting readers to encounter 'the ghosts of Letcher County,' specifically referencing the hollow and its Civil War dead. Appalachian folklore researchers studying the region's haunted lore have documented the Westwood phenomenon as one of the more credible battlefield-residual traditions in eastern Kentucky, given the confirmed historical anchor of not one but two documented military engagements in this specific location — the December 1862 skirmish and the April 1865 battle.
The Shadowlands Haunted Places Index describes additional phenomena: figures seen in multiple cemetery sections, gun shots firing when no one is present, and men in Civil War dress running and disappearing in the woods adjacent to the hollow. These reports are consistent with the broader regional tradition and the site's documented military history.
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Walk through one of eastern Kentucky's most historically layered burial grounds, where Confederate soldiers from a field hospital near Sandlick Creek were interred after the Civil War engagements at Whitesburg. Confederate grave markers restored by the Col. Ben E. Caudill Camp #1629 Sons of Confederate Veterans are visible in the older section.
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