A Guide to the Best of Southern California : GOING PLACES : Civil War Ghosts of L.A.

OF THE THREE candidates for President in 1860, Abraham Lincoln came in third (with eight votes) in Los Angeles, then a backwater town of 4,000 people. (Neighboring El Monte and Big Bear voted 100% Confederate.) At the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in Wilmington, visitors can step back in time to a period of petticoats and Gatling guns. Built in 1862, the original complex once contained housing for officers and was supply headquarters for the Union Army in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

The remaining two-story house is the only one of the original 19 buildings left on the 60-acre site. A parlor and bedroom are restored to how they might have appeared during the period, and the attractions also include a research library, a detailed model of the camp, a photo collection and an armory (cannons and other weaponry).

Then there are the “ghosts.” Museum director Marge O’Brien frequently sings when she’s alone in the 16-room building, and a female ghost who inhabits the quarters has been heard humming the same tunes. The ghost also, it is said, occasionally strolls up behind an unwary visitor, who reportedly can sense her presence by the smell of sweet lavender and gardenia. Booted footsteps have been heard from the second floor, where locked doors have become, within moments, mysteriously unlocked. And neighbors have reported that at night they frequently see figures in uniform looking out the front windows. Drum Barracks Civil War Museum, 1052 Banning Blvd., Wilmington; (213) 548-7509.