Gorgas House at the University of Alabama, a two-story brick house with a columned front porch, photographed in 1993

University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa, AL: The Woods Hall Duel, the Gorgas Family and the Buildings That Survived 1865

Southeastern US Haunted Schools

On February 28, 1877, two students at the University of Alabama went to opposite ends of the second-floor veranda of Woods Hall and exchanged shots. One of them, William W. Alston, fell into the quadrangle below and died. The event is documented, and it is the root of the best-known ghost story on the Tuscaloosa campus. Around it sit stories about the Gorgas family, an old guardhouse and a library elevator. This guide keeps the record and the folklore apart.

The Woods Hall duel: what the sources say

Woods Hall was the first building raised after Union troops burned most of the campus on April 4, 1865. UA’s own building summary says it was built of materials salvaged from the original campus and was first called “The Barracks.” For almost two decades it housed the entire university.

According to the Iota Iota chapter of Sigma Chi, Alston had publicly questioned the integrity of Kibble J. Harrison’s younger cousin the day before. Harrison issued a challenge even though Alabama had outlawed dueling in 1819. Harrison fired one shot, Alston returned it, then slumped over the railing and fell to the quadrangle, where he lay dead. Harrison was tried for murder and acquitted.

The accounts do not agree on everything. Sigma Chi says the two men belonged to rival fraternities and that the duel led the university to ban fraternities. A historian of the Psi chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, writing in a 2017 chapter newsletter, calls the shooting a real event but says the Sigma Chi version contains serious errors. He found no record of Alston in DKE membership lists, notes that the university’s fraternity ban ran from 1856 to 1885, and dates the shooting to 1878. The February 28, 1877 date used here is the one given by Sigma Chi and the Crimson White. The year, the fraternity ties and the reason for the ban are best treated as unsettled.

The legend at Woods Quad

The Crimson White reported in 2019 that a ghost tour run by the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group tells of Alston’s spirit on the second floor, with cold spots, the smell of gunpowder and the sound of gunshots. The tour is based on the book Haunted Tuscaloosa by David Higdon and Brett Talley. A 2024 post on the Old South Moon blog, by a former art student, describes one evening at the fourth-floor elevator when he saw the legs of a figure in black boots and pale blue trousers who then could not be found. It is a single personal account, and the same post dates the duel to 1868.

The four buildings that survived 1865

UA’s library research guide says only four buildings survived the burning: the President’s Mansion, the Gorgas House (then known as Steward’s Hall), the Round House and the Observatory, now Maxwell Hall. The Encyclopedia of Alabama entry on Croxton’s Raid lists the same four and calls the guard house the only building of military value left standing. UA’s pre-Civil War building summaries give the details:

  • Gorgas House. Built in 1829 and called the oldest building on campus. It was a dining hall and steward’s residence, later a lecture space, post office and campus hospital. The Gorgas family occupied it from 1879 to 1953, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
  • President’s Mansion. Built between 1839 and 1841. According to tradition, Louisa Frances Garland, wife of President Landon C. Garland, saved it in 1865.
  • Observatory. Completed in 1844 and renamed Maxwell Hall in 1986.
  • Little Round House. A guardhouse for the Alabama Corps of Cadets, built in the early 1860s. Until 1865 it also housed the Drum Corps, which UA’s summary says was “composed of rented slaves.” It became the university surgeon’s office in 1871, a records store in 1888, the headquarters of the Jasons honor society in 1933, and a memorial to all honor societies in 1990.

The same summaries say the brick outbuildings beside the President’s Mansion were intended as residences for the president’s enslaved people. No ghost stories about the drum corps or those residents turned up in the sources, and none are added here.

The Round House has a legend of its own. As al.com’s Strange Alabama column tells it, two cadets stayed behind as Union soldiers began burning the campus. One sent three soldiers demanding whiskey to the Round House, where his companion waited in ambush. The moans and apparitions near the guardhouse are said to be those soldiers. None of the UA or Encyclopedia of Alabama sources reviewed mentions such an episode.

Josiah and Amelia Gorgas: the family behind the folklore

Josiah Gorgas (1818 to 1883) was the Confederate chief of ordnance and was elected president of the University of Alabama in 1878. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, he suffered a stroke in February 1879, resigned that July, and was given the new post of librarian. He died in Tuscaloosa on May 15, 1883.

Amelia Gayle Gorgas (1826 to 1913) was appointed hospital matron in 1879 and nursed sick students in her home, now the Gorgas House, according to UA Libraries. She became librarian after her husband’s death and postmistress in 1886. The 1896 yearbook was dedicated to her as “the good angel of their college home.”

The folklore follows the family. The Crimson White and al.com both report that Josiah is sometimes heard on the stairs of the Gorgas House, his sword knocking against the wall, a “step, step, clink” sound. Tour guides quoted by the newspaper say the Gorgas spirits feel protective, not threatening. This is legend, and the Crimson White misnames him “Joseph.”

Gorgas Library: a 1939 building and a modern story

Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library was built in 1939 on the site of the first campus library, the Rotunda, which was destroyed in the Civil War. Amelia died in 1913, so she never worked in this building. The best-known story is that an elevator stops on the fourth floor, which it is supposedly programmed to bypass, and opens onto an empty floor. The 2010 Crimson White quotes Daniel W. Barefoot’s book Haunted Halls of Ivy as attributing it to “the wraith of Amelia Gorgas, who continues to keep the place in order.” The elevator story belongs to a 20th-century building and is a modern legend, not an old one.

What the record does not support

  • The date, fraternities and cause of the duel. Sigma Chi gives 1877 and rival fraternities. The DKE historian disputes both the year and Alston’s membership. A 2010 Crimson White list says one student “murdered” another by pushing him off the balcony, which none of the other accounts say.
  • Josiah Gorgas dying in the Gorgas House. Al.com says he died in the home that bears his name. The Encyclopedia of Alabama says he was allowed to remain in the president’s residence and died in Tuscaloosa, and the UA history department’s exhibit page says he retired to the old Pratt House. No record of the place of death was found.
  • The elevator rule. No source found documents an elevator programmed to bypass a floor. The library’s description lists the A. S. Williams III Americana Collection on the fourth floor and says nothing about a ghost.

Visiting

The campus is public. The Round House and Woods Hall can be seen from outside, and Woods Hall now holds the Sella-Granata Art Gallery and art department classrooms, according to UA’s building summary. The President’s Mansion is the home of the university president and is not a visitor site. The Gorgas House is run as a museum by UA Museums. Its visit page lists hours and admission, but it could not be opened for this guide, so confirm both before going. The Crimson White reported in 2019 that the Haunted Tuscaloosa Tours would skip that year. No later schedule was found. Please respect classes and residences.

Sources

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Top image: Gorgas House at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, spring 1993, shown because the only free photo of Woods Hall on Commons has a modern sculpture blurred out in the foreground. Gorgas House is one of the four buildings that survived the 1865 burning. Photo: Jet Lowe (Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons