1818
The Battle of Waterloo took place on June 18, 1815. The actual battle lasted about nine hours. There are varying estimates of the combined death toll of all of the soldiers lost that day, but the most often quoted number is 50,000 men.
With so violent a battle and so high a cost, it is little wonder there are stories of those whose spirits never left that blood-soaked field. Interestingly enough, those of Flemish descent whose ancestors fought in the battle or whose ancestors lived in the area during the battle, are said to have an innate and often undesired ability to see the specters who return to the battlefield to relive the fight or who come in search of someone or something they left behind in death.
Local guides who give tours of the battlefield during the day often refuse to step foot there after dark. Locals who live in the area of the Hougomont farm, the museum, and the battlefield usually give the area a wide berth at night.
Some of the more well-known legends and sightings include:
A French soldier seen wandering the battlefield in the moonlight searching for his fallen comrades. More than one visitor has reported seeing him, especially near the Hougoumont Farm.
Another famous ghost is The Lady in White, thought to be the spirit of a woman who tended the wounded and dying soldiers. She is often seen near the Mont-Saint-Jean Farm which was used as a hospital during and after the battle. She is sometimes seen on the battlefield still in search of wounded soldiers to tend.
Locals often claim to hear the sounds of drums, battle cries, horses and cannon fire at midnight as if the battle never ended.
For an interesting account of a skeptic perhaps converted by his own experience check out this intriguing blog post.
One of the items on my bucket list is to climb to the top of the Lion’s Mound at midnight and allow the profundity of that place to fill me.
I for one do not find it hard to believe a place where so much sudden and violent death took place still retains the spiritual energy so much agony and sorrow produced. As the Duke of Wellington said:
“Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained” 
To immerse yourself in the non-military, military, and very human side of the Battle of Waterloo through first-hand accounts I humbly suggest our own Kristine Hughes’s book Waterloo Witnesses. The accounts she has collected, discusses, and weaves together to create a picture of the lives, loves, hopes, fears, triumphs, and tragedies of the people who actually lived this momentous point in history will allow you to see the hearts, minds, and souls that will remind us of the price of war and of the spirits of those to whom we owe so very much. Perhaps some of the very people whose personal accounts she has recorded still walk the battlefield in search of what they lost and what they gave to free the world of tyranny.
Perhaps, though, the very best words ever written about that momentous campaign are the first-person accounts recorded as events unfolded. It is these vivid accounts that Kristine Hughes has collected together in order to convey the hopes, fears and aspirations of their authors. They inject the story of the battle with a level of humanity that reclaims it from the realm of legend and restores it to the people who witnessed it.
https://www.amazon.com/Waterloo-Witnesses-Military-Civilian-Accounts/dp/1399003623