Port Gibson's 1807 burial ground holds Confederate dead from the Battle of Port Gibson — and hosts documented nighttime paranormal tours.
Walnut St, Port Gibson, MS 39150
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cemetery grounds are free to visit during daylight hours; organized nighttime tours may charge a fee for fundraising events.
Access
Limited Access
Historic cemetery with uneven ground, tree roots, and gravel paths; some sections may be difficult to navigate in a wheelchair.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1807 · Established 1807 — one of Mississippi's oldest active cemeteries · Contains graves of Confederate soldiers from the Battle of Port Gibson (May 1, 1863) · Final resting place of Gen. Earl Van Dorn, Confederate cavalry commander and Port Gibson native
Port Gibson, described by Ulysses S. Grant as 'too beautiful to burn' during the Vicksburg Campaign, has maintained Wintergreen Cemetery since 1807. The grounds were active long before the Civil War transformed the region, serving as the primary burial place for the town's earliest white settler community and prominent families.
The Battle of Port Gibson — fought on May 1, 1863, as part of Grant's Vicksburg Campaign — brought the war directly to the town's doorstep. Confederate forces under Gen. John Bowen attempted to halt Grant's advance after Union troops had crossed the Mississippi River at Bruinsburg. The Confederates were outnumbered and pushed back toward Vicksburg, and the dead from that engagement include soldiers now interred at Wintergreen.
Gen. Earl Van Dorn, a Port Gibson native who commanded Confederate cavalry in the Western Theater, is among the notable figures associated with this cemetery. Van Dorn was shot and killed in Spring Hill, Tennessee in May 1863 by a civilian who accused him of misconduct; he was eventually returned and buried in Port Gibson.
The cemetery's atmosphere — Spanish moss draped across aged cedar trees, headstones dating to the early nineteenth century — has drawn local paranormal investigators who have organized periodic nighttime tours of the grounds for fundraising purposes. WLBT news coverage from 2016 documented one such tour organized for charitable benefit.
Sources
Wintergreen Cemetery has attracted paranormal investigators drawn to its combination of age, wartime death, and atmospheric surroundings. The cemetery's cedar trees and Spanish moss create a canopy that limits light penetration even during the day, and at night the grounds take on a quality that local ghost hunters have found productive for investigation.
Claims from local paranormal groups center on photographic anomalies — orbs and light streaks captured on camera — and EVP recordings, in which investigators believe they have captured disembodied voices or sounds on audio equipment. These types of claims are common to Civil War-era cemetery investigations and are not independently verifiable, but they reflect a consistent pattern of paranormal interest in the grounds.
The cemetery's periodic organized nighttime tours, documented by WLBT in 2016, suggest that the site has enough local folklore and community engagement to sustain recurring public events. These tours have been organized as fundraisers, blending dark tourism with charitable purpose in a pattern familiar across Mississippi's Civil War landscape.
Walk the grounds of one of Port Gibson's oldest cemeteries, established in 1807. Spanish moss-draped cedars shade graves of Confederate soldiers killed in the May 1, 1863 Battle of Port Gibson, early town founders, and Gen. Earl Van Dorn.
Periodic fundraising nighttime tours organized by local groups explore the cemetery after dark. Local paranormal investigators have documented alleged photographic anomalies and EVP captures on the grounds.
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