Champ Ferguson

Champ Ferguson (November 29, 1821 – October 20, 1865) was a notorious Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War. He claimed to have killed over 100 Union soldiers and pro-Union civilians.

Early life and origins of Confederate stance
Ferguson was born in Clinton County, Kentucky, on the Tennessee border, the oldest of ten children. Like his father, he became a farmer. Ferguson earned a reputation for violence. Reportedly, in 1858, he led a group of men who tied Sheriff James Read of Fentress County, Tennessee to a tree. Ferguson then rode his horse around the tree, hacking at Read repeatedly with a sword until he was dead. He is also claimed to have stabbed a man named Evans at a camp meeting. Evans survived. In the 1850s, Ferguson moved with his wife and family to the Calfkiller River Valley in White County, Tennessee.

For reasons not clear, Ferguson developed a passionate hatred for the Union cause. One tradition claims that Union soldiers raped his wife and daughter. Another belief is that he held grudges against a number of local Union men. Ferguson himself would claim that Confederate officials had promised him they would overlook his previous behaviour if he supported the southern war effort.

Guerrilla activities
During the Civil War, East Tennessee, a mostly mountainous region, was divided over secession from the Union. The terrain and lack of law enforcement due to the war gave guerrilla fighters and irregular military groups significant freedom in the region. There are substantial numbers of recorded incidents of guerrilla and revenge attacks, especially on the Cumberland Plateau. Even families were often divided. One of Champ Ferguson's brothers was killed as a member of the Union's 1st Kentucky Cavalry.

At the start of the war, Ferguson organized a unit and started attacking civilians believed to support the Union. Occasionally, his guerrilla band cooperated with Confederate military units led by Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler. Some evidence indicates Ferguson was actually made a captain of partisan rangers by Morgan. However, Ferguson's men were seldom subject to military discipline and frequently violated the normal rules of warfare.

There are legends of Ferguson's alleged sadism, including stories that he decapitated prisoners and rolled their heads down hillsides and was willing to kill elderly and bedridden men. He was once arrested by Confederate authorities for the murder of a government official and was detained for two months in Wytheville, Virginia, though he was finally released.

Trial and hanging


At the war's end, Ferguson returned home to his farm. He was promptly arrested by Union troops and was tried in Nashville for 53 murders, an attempt to document his wartime activities. His trial attracted national attention and became a major media event. One of Ferguson's main adversaries during the conflict, "Tinker Dave" Beaty, testified against him—just as Ferguson had led a band of guerrillas against any suspected or real pro-unionists, Beaty had led a band of guerrillas against any suspected or real pro-Confederates. Not surprisingly, each had done his best to kill the other. Ferguson acknowledged his band had killed many of the victims named and admitted killing over 100 men personally. Nevertheless, he insisted it was only part of his military duty.



The number of wounded men and prisoners his band killed after the Battle of Saltville is still a matter of dispute. These were mostly members of the all-black 5th United States Colored Cavalry and their white officers. Ferguson and his men supposedly murdered the wounded in their beds at the hospital, and only the arrival of Thomas' Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders prevented further slaughter. Ferguson departed as soon as he heard that regular Confederate troops had arrived.

On October 10, 1865, Champ was found guilty and sentenced to hang. He made a statement in response to 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, 1865, and was one of only two men to be tried, convicted and executed for war crimes during the Civil War (the other being Captain Henry Wirz, commandant of the infamous Andersonville prison in Georgia). His body was buried in the France Cemetery on Highway 84 (Monterey Highway) north of Sparta, White County, Tennessee.