Champ Ferguson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Champ Ferguson (November 29, 1821 - October 20, 1865) was a Kentucky and Tennessee Confederate guerrilla in the American Civil War who is claimed to have killed dozens of soldiers and civilians.
Contents |
[edit] Early life and origins of Confederate stance
Born in Clinton County, Kentucky, near the Tennessee border, the oldest of ten children, he worked as a farmer. Ferguson had a reputation for fighting and violence his entire life. In his thirties, he moved with his wife and family from southern Kentucky into the Calfkiller River Valley in White County, Tennessee.
For reasons that are debated, Ferguson developed a fierce hatred for the Union cause. Local tradition says that Federal soldiers may have raped his wife and daughter. Another theory claims that he maintained grudges against individuals in the area who supported the Union. Ferguson himself would later claim that Confederate officials had promised him they would ignore a previous murder charge if he agreed to support the southern effort.
[edit] Guerrilla activities
During the Civil War, East Tennessee, a mostly mountainous region, was divided about secessionism. The terrain and the dislocation of military units and law enforcement due to the war gave various guerrilla fighters and irregular military groups significant reign in the region. Especially on the Cumberland Plateau, there are substantial numbers of recorded incidents of guerrilla and revenge attacks. The nature of terrority meant that even family was often divided. Champ's own brother was killed as a member of the Union 1st Kentucky Cavalry.
At the start of the war, he organized a unit of men and started to attack civilians in the region believed to support the Union. At various times, his group had contact with Confederate military units led by Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler. Some documentary evidence indicates that he was authorized to be an official military captain by Morgan. However, in any case, they were not always subject to the military discipline and often engaged in clear violations of normal military rules.
They are many legends about Ferguson's sadism, including that he decapitated prisoners and rolled the heads down the hillsides and was willing to kill elderly and bedridden men. Even before the end of the war, he was arrested for the murder of a government officer by Confederate officials and detained for two months in Wytheville, Virginia, but then released.
[edit] Trial and hanging
At the end of the war, he was arrested and tried in Nashville for 53 murders, and there was an attempt to document his activities. His trial was a major media event. One of Ferguson's main adversaries during the conflict "Tinker Dave" Beaty testified against him. Ferguson accepted that he killed many of the victims named and admitted killing over 100 men personally, but maintained that this was part of his military activities. The number of wounded and prisoners he (and his men) killed from the Battle of Saltville is and was a matter of dispute. These individuals were primarily members of the black 5th United States Colored Cavalry and their white officers.
On October 10, 1865, he was found guilty and sentenced to hanging. Ferguson made the following statement after the verdict: "I am yet and will die a Rebel ... I killed a good many men, of course, but I never killed a man who I did not know was seeking my life. ... I had always heard that the Federals would not take me prisoner, but would shoot me down wherever they found me. That is what made me kill more than I otherwise would have done. I repeat that I die a Rebel out and out, and my last request is that my body be removed to White County, Tennessee, and be buried in good Rebel soil." He was hanged on October 20. He is buried in the France Cemetery on Highway 84 (Monterey Highway) north of Sparta, Tennessee.
Still today, Ferguson is remembered very differently in different parts of the region as evident in these historical markers.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- McDade, Arthur, "Tennessee Guerrilla Champ Ferguson Killed More Than 100 Men Before Facing The Hangman's Noose" America's Civil War, March 2001, Vol. 14, No. 1.
