Sachs Covered Bridge
Built around 1852, this 100-foot Town-lattice covered bridge spans Marsh Creek on the outskirts of the Gettysburg battlefield, and in July 1863 it carried Union corps toward the fighting and, days later, much of Lee's defeated army back south in retreat. Local legend holds that three soldiers — variously called Confederate deserters or spies — were hanged from its support beams, though no contemporary record of the hanging exists and the tale surfaces only from the 1980s onward. Visitors and ghost hunters have long reported the strong smell of cigar or pipe smoke where none is burning, faint cannon fire in the distance, and the sudden tap of a hand on the shoulder when no one is near. Some claim photographs taken inside the dim wooden span reveal figures that were never there. Whether echo of the retreat or trick of an old battlefield's quiet, the bridge keeps its reputation as one of Gettysburg's most haunted spots.
📍 Waterworks Road, between Cumberland and Freedom Townships, Adams County, near Gettysburg, PA, Gettysburg, PA · Get directions