Honest Stories and Haunted Steps: Ghost Tours of Chickamauga

In Chickamauga, a town steeped in history, a new walking ghost tour gives voice to the stories too often left untold.

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Southern Shadows - A Walker Rocks Community Spotlight

Website: www.southernshadows.com

Email: info@southernshadows.com

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In Chickamauga, Georgia, the streets carry echoes. Not just of cannon fire or battlefield marches, but of whispered names, unmarked memories, and stories that never made it into textbooks. And if you follow the flicker of a lantern down Gordon Street on a quiet night, you’ll find someone who knows how to hear them.

Her name is Courtney McInvale, and she and her husband, Marty Reardon, give ghost tours. But not the kind with fog machines or guys in rubber masks. Their tours don’t rely on cheap thrills or jump scares. What Southern Shadows offers is something else entirely: a walk through haunted ground, yes... but also through history.

Because sometimes, the ghost story is the one that tells the truth.

Where the Ghosts Are Human

Courtney's not just a storyteller. She’s a historian. She studied war, memory, and Southern culture long before she ever held a lantern. Her classroom is the sidewalks.

The stories she tells aren’t sanitized. They don’t skip over the uncomfortable parts. They shine a light on the cracks. On the women whose names weren’t recorded, on the people who laid the foundations of the town, on the soldiers who died far from home and never made it into monument marble.

Some of those stories come with a chill. A shadow in a window. A face in the mist. The sound of footsteps on empty stairs. But what stays with you isn’t fear. It’s recognition.

Courtney’s not trying to convince you to believe in ghosts. She just asks you to consider what we might learn from listening to the ones we’ve forgotten.

A (Ghost Tour) Walk Through Chickamauga

The Southern Shadows ghost tour isn’t long. Just a half-mile or so, looping through Chickamauga’s historic downtown. But in that distance, time stands still. Buildings speak. And the space between past and present feels paper-thin.

You’ll hear about murder, war, fire, and folklore. But you’ll also hear about resilience. About what people left behind. About how the stories we don’t tell still linger, waiting for someone to notice.

There’s no stage lighting. No scripts. Just a woman with a voice made for storytelling, standing beneath a streetlamp, helping you see a place you thought you knew with new eyes.

From Connecticut to Georgia

Courtney and Marty's path here wasn’t linear. As a child, Courtney's family lived in a unique house in Connecticut. It was investigated by none other than Lorraine and Ed Warren, the couple made famous by the Conjuring movies. But even then, Courtney wasn’t chasing ghosts. She was paying attention.

That attention turned into education, which turned into books, which turned into Seaside Shadows, the first ghost tour business she launched up North. And now, it’s Southern Shadows. A new chapter in Chickamauga.

Courtney’s father is originally from Georgia, and it was during a trip tracing Civil War battlefields that she and Marty found themselves in Chickamauga. They fell in love with the town, its history, its stories, its people. It just felt right.

She and Marty moved here not just for the history, but for the community. And like all good stories, theirs is still being written.

The Tour That Chickamauga Didn’t Know It Needed

Chickamauga is a town rich in history. It’s in the brickwork. In the battlefields. In the silences between passing cars. But for all its reverence, the town is moving and growing, shifting, asking itself who it wants to be.

Southern Shadows fits in like a whispered story between neighbors. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t push. It simply invites.

It invites locals to remember the stories their grandparents told on porches. It invites visitors to connect with more than just the battlefield. It invites skeptics and believers alike to slow down, listen closely, and walk the path anyway.

Because the value isn’t in whether you see a ghost.

The value is in what you feel when the lights dim and the stories start.

Truth, Told Softly

In the end, Southern Shadows isn’t really about the supernatural. It’s about empathy. It’s about learning to see people, past and present, as layered, flawed, and worthy of being remembered.

And maybe that’s the most haunting thing of all: the way a quiet little tour in a quiet little town can open up your heart without asking permission.

So if you find yourself in Chickamauga on a dusky evening, take the walk. Not because you believe in ghosts. But because you believe in stories.

And in the hands of someone like Courtney McInvale, stories have a way of sticking with you.

Even after the tour ends and the lantern goes out.

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Behind the Lantern: A Rapid Fire Q&A with Southern Shadows

We sat down with the folks behind Southern Shadows to ask a few quick questions. What we found was a business rooted in history, heart, and more humanity than you might expect from a ghost tour.

What inspired you to start Southern Shadows here in Chickamauga?

We visited here and instantly fell in love with the city and its history. Chickamauga has layers, some beautiful, some painful, and we wanted to share in something that honors that complexity.

What makes your ghost tours different from the usual kind?

We focus on telling stories, on research, and on tales that haven’t always made it into the history books. If it’s not grounded in the past and in real places, we’re not talking about it.

Are the stories based on historical research?

Yes! The stories we tell are drawn from public records, oral history, and local archives. Sometimes we dig up something new. Something that even longtime locals haven’t heard before.

Is the tour family-friendly?

Definitely. It’s spooky, sure, but never inappropriate. We’ve had parents, kids, and grandparents. All walking together, all leaving with something to talk about.

What kind of stories do you include?

We highlight everything from Civil War tales to the lives of enslaved people, early settlers, and overlooked characters of the community. We believe every era, and every voice, is worth preserving!

What kind of reactions have you gotten from the community?

Honestly, it’s been amazing. Locals have thanked us for sharing stories, a part of their history, that they had never heard about or learned about before. That’s the best feedback we can get.

What’s your background before this?

We started Seaside Shadows in New England over a decade ago. I (Courtney) am a historian and author, and I’ve always been drawn to the way ghost stories carry emotional truth. This is our way of teaching history in a way people remember.

How can folks join a tour?

Tours run regularly in downtown Chickamauga. You can sign up and learn more at southernshadows.com. Private and group tours are welcome, too.

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Join Southern Shadows for a guided walk through time, exploring the legends, battles, and spirits that still whisper through this historic town. Perfect for history lovers, thrill seekers, and curious travelers alike.

Reserve your tour today at southernshadows.com and experience the haunted heart of Georgia for yourself.