A Stakeout for Civil War Spirits

"My bad, guys," Burke said, laughing and flipping open his phone.

After two more hours of searching, recording and feeling for ghosts in the dark, the group retreated to a nearby steakhouse. On the way there, Mike Hartness, usually the most taciturn of the team's four core members, began to talk. With the gravelly voice of a longtime smoker, he tried to explain the goal of the hunt.

For most of his life, he has harbored a suspicion that there is something more to this world than what we see and hear. "Everyone's looking for something to believe in," said Hartness, 54, a lanky home remodeler from Silver Spring. "But there's always doubt, and until you see it with your own two eyes, you never know. That's what I'm trying to do: see it with my own eyes so I can believe."

Many in the group hope to give up their day jobs and hunt full time, Burke said later at the steakhouse. There are other dreams, too: a TV show with the History Channel, a correspondence course for ghost hunting, a funded expedition to the beaches of Normandy -- a mecca for battlefield ghost hunters.

"Even if all those things don't happen, we'll keep searching," Burke said. "The thing I'm really looking for is that perfect night, when you're out there and it's like a window opens onto the world.

"And you get a whole brigade marching down in one glorious moment. The battle unfolds in front of you, and you get it all on camera -- history in motion."

He lifted a piece of rib-eye to his mouth and let out a sigh of satisfaction. With dinner almost over, the group started gearing up to head back into the cold.

Outside, the sky was dark, the wind was blowing and on the abandoned battlefields, not a living soul was stirring.