In the grassy area next to Perkins Hall, late on a clear, moonlit night, a group of eight men dressed as soldiers from the Union army of the Civil War can sometimes be seen looking over maps and talking to each other. This group is said to be the eight Union soldiers whose graves were discovered when the foundations for Barbara Blount Hall (located immediately to the north of Perkins) were unearthed in 1900. Construction was stopped, and the bodies were removed and reinterred at the National Cemetery in marked, but unidentified, graves. The spirits of the men were said never to have left their peaceful resting place above the river and to have wandered upon occasion through Barbara Blount Hall. Soon after Barbara Blount Hall was razed in 1979, reports of the meetings in the area next to Perkins began.