Delivered upon the occasion of the SCV State Reunion at the France Cemetery, White County, Tennessee by James K. Turner.  April 24, 2004.

I have long been intrigued by the man, and the soldier, that was Captain Champ Ferguson. Many have. The question asked most often is, “Why did Ferguson do the things that he did.” Twenty years ago I think I would have replied that Ferguson was a man who took advantage of the war. Now, I believe that the war took advantage of him. 

Many of us are familiar with the exploits of Champ Ferguson. The 500 horses stolen from the Yankees in Kingston (to the east of us), the theft of Dr. Hale's piano in Albany, Kentucky and its perfect transport to Yankeetown, (just down the road here), or the poetry related to the Dug Hill fight. He hated Lincolnites and he admired Campbellites. The book on Champ Ferguson by Thurman Sensing relates many of these stories, as do various vignettes in other assorted books on the region. Sometimes it's almost impossible to discern the fact from the folklore, but as far as I'm concerned, the words on the marker by the road here are perfect.

I don't think that it's possible to understand Champ Ferguson or the guerilla warfare of this region without understanding the events leading up to the war, and the vacuum that the Upper Cumberland became. So, today, I’d like to spend a few minutes concentrating not so much on the exploits of Champ Ferguson, but on the peculiar events which set him upon the path which led to his unjustified execution. 

As war dawned in 1861, Champ Ferguson was a man approaching 40; he was a farmer, a bit of a horse trader, a man of common sense, and one who never shirked from a fight. In many ways he was typical of the common man of this region. We know that he was a tall and fit man; he was as handy with a knife as he was with a gun; he was, at times, hard-drinking; he probably chewed tobacco and he was undoubtedly a horseman alongside the best. When up against a fight or an enemy he was mean and relentless. To understand Champ Ferguson, the man, is a difficult thing for us today. There are few, if any, of his sort among us today. That is not a disparaging remark toward Captain Ferguson, nor is it one toward ourselves. Times have become more comfortable, and our ways of thinking have changed. And while I agree that we have an easier life, I sincerely doubt, even with all of our achievements, that we are more enlightened. We tend to look to the past with a hindsight that gives us the impression that we would have done things differently, or that we would have done things in the same way, but that arriving at our final decision would have been so much easier for us. I beg to differ, and I believe that the story of Champ Ferguson is incomplete without an understanding of the events - unparalleled events - that were taking place all around him. 

Champ Ferguson was a native of Clinton County, Kentucky, just across the Tennessee line, and as the clouds of war moved toward his home he was faced with the decision of a lifetime. With the possible exception of South Carolina, I believe Kentucky to be one of the most intriguing states (it’s actually a commonwealth) in the early period of the war. On April 12, 1861 South Carolina gunners fired upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter’s forces were led by Major Robert Anderson, a native Kentuckian and a slave owner. Three days later Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 90-day volunteers to put down the so-called rebellion, and the United States Secretary of War Simon Cameron immediately requested that Kentucky furnish troops to the cause. Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin instantly replied by wire, with two terse sentences. “Your dispatch is received. In answer, I may say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister states.” In response to Lincoln’s call for troops, President Jefferson Davis issued a call for 100,000 troops, including men from Kentucky. Governor Magoffin, in a futile attempt to maintain neutrality, also refused the request of President Davis. The Kentucky legislature was primarily pro-union, and Governor Magoffin was willing to work hard to keep Kentucky from allying with troops assembling to invade southward. His most thoughtful political maneuver was to send General Simon Bolivar Buckner (Pro-Confederate) and Senator John Crittenden (Pro-Union) to meet with President Lincoln, explaining Kentucky’s claim of sovereign neutrality. Lincoln did meet with the emissaries, but dismissed them with the words that “every state which refused to honor the nation’s request for support while under attack must be considered as a seceded state.”

Lincoln was reluctant to force the issue, however, and began to set clandestine maneuvers into effect. On May 15, 1861 the Military Department of Kentucky was created, and Major Robert Anderson, he of Fort Sumter fame a month earlier, was made a General to oversee the new department. General Anderson established headquarters at Cincinnati, so that he could closely watch events in Kentucky and Tennessee. Tensions were mounting. Camps Boone and Trousdale were established in Tennessee, just below the Kentucky line, so that Kentuckians could join the South. The U.S. acted likewise, setting up recruitment stations in Indiana and Ohio, just across the Kentucky border. Kentucky had formally declared herself to be neutral in the conflict, but that neutrality was first truly disturbed by the United States Government working in concert with native Kentuckians. The United States government began shipping arms and supplies into Kentucky, under the pretense that the arms were going to native Kentuckians forming militias for the defense of Kentucky. Recruiting and commanding most of these men was William “Bull” Nelson, a hot-tempered Kentucky native who had been a Lieutenant in the US Navy. Nelson was appointed a Brigadier General of U.S. Volunteers so that he could more efficiently organize the new volunteers. Nelson also established a training camp near Nicholasville and Harrodsburg, named Camp Dick Robinson, in honor of the plantation owner who allowed the use of his 3,200 acres for the soldiers. General Nelson wrote to the Adjutant General of the U.S. Army on July 16, 1861 that “I have directed the captains of the armed Home Guard at Nicholasville to furnish a sufficient guard for the stores while detained at that place.” The stores that he spoke of included 10,000 muskets for the Home Guard that had been supplied by the federal government. General Nelson, as far as I’m concerned, was a traitor to his native state for his work to form regiments that were never meant solely for the defense of Kentucky. To his credit, Governor Magoffin did formally protest to Washington, but was rebuffed, being told that the federal government of the United States could not interfere with native Kentuckians doing what they pleased on Kentucky soil. Yep, the federal government played the “state’s rights”card when it was to their benefit. But if it’s any consolation, General Nelson’s temper got him into trouble one time too many, and fellow Union General Jefferson C. Davis killed him in late September 1862. General Davis, by the way, was never court-martialed, as Bragg’s Army was marching into Kentucky about that time, and men couldn’t be spared for a trial.

These were the political and military actions that men such as Champ Ferguson were watching during the spring and summer and fall of 1861. Even today, the matter is a bit confusing, and we can only assume what the citizens of the Upper Cumberland were thinking. In an effort to guard Pro-Confederate western Kentucky, Confederate General Leonidas Polk entered Columbus on September 4. A day later General U.S. Grant crossed the river and occupied Paducah, a very pro-secession city. Less than a week later, Albert Sidney Johnston was appointed a Confederate general, with the goal of establishing a defensive line across the entire length of the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Four days later Simon Bolivar Buckner, who had resigned as Kentucky Adjutant General because of demands by the pro-Union military board to turn in its arms, led a large part of his Kentucky State Guard into Confederate service at Bowling Green. Still in September, U.S. Generals Anderson and Crittenden are sent to Kentucky to command, and John Hunt Morgan led his company of Lexington Rifles into the Confederate service under Buckner at Bowling Green. In October, William T. Sherman replaced General Anderson. Pro-Neutrality Senator John C. Breckinridge fled the state of Kentucky, as he felt threatened by the military government being organized in that state. He was later made a Confederate General and went on to lead the men known as The Orphan Brigade. And in probably the most significant political event of October 1861, Confederate sympathizers held a Sovereignty Convention in Russellville, adding Kentucky’s star to the Stars and Bars. 

You know the rest of the story; the Confederate line across the Kentucky-Tennessee border was as effective as that of the Maginot Line, which France had hoped would hold back the expected German attack. General Zollicoffer’s troops were soundly defeated at Mill Springs in January, 1862, and retreated through Livingston and Gainesboro on their way to Murfreesboro where they joined with General Johnston’s army. Nashville fell a few weeks later, and most of the Upper Cumberland was practically abandoned by organized Confederate troops. A historian standing on this spot would have to travel dozens of miles to visit a battlefield that was contested by more than a few hundred troops. 

Into this void fell the guerillas, Union and Secesh, notable among them Champ Ferguson. There has been much speculation as to why Champ Ferguson joined sides with the South. Among those theories is that he had had a disagreement with his Unionist brother Jim, that his wife and daughter were humiliated by Union sympathizers, that he had a son who was killed by Unionists, or that he plea-bargained a murder charge, being set free upon the condition that he join with the Confederates. Champ did have a disagreement with his brother, but he also had a highly publicized disagreement with Floyd and Alexander Evans, and they both served under him during the war. And I do believe that his family was humiliated, but I don’t believe that was the reason he fought as a Southron. I don’t believe that he ever had a son who was murdered, and I don’t believe he bargained himself out of a murder charge. The most logical reason that Champ Ferguson joined the Confederate Army, and one that is very rarely mentioned, is that Captain Ferguson actually believed that the South was right. I believe that he understood what was happening on a higher level, and that he was truly doing right. At the basest of levels, he understood that men and munitions were flowing from the north, and that he had been forced to flee to the South. Consider his words from the morning of his execution…words that have been printed with slight variations, but consistent in their meaning. “I was a Southern man at the start. I am yet, and will die a Rebel.” He further added, “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.” Those are the words of an intelligent man, a man of conviction, and a man not afraid to die for his beliefs and his country. 

Even after years of reading and researching, I’m not sure that I really have a lot to add to the tales of Champ Ferguson…most of us here are familiar with the stories. If I can do anything for the memory of Captain Champ Ferguson of the Confederate Army, it is to ask that as you continue to search for new stories about him, that you also work to dispel some of the myths. With the release of a previously unpublished diary a few years ago called “Bluegrass Confederate” by Captain Edward O. Guerrant, we have stronger evidence that Champ told the truth when he said that he played no role in the so-called massacre at Saltville. Likewise, because he knew that he was a condemned man, I am led to believe that he never killed those that he said he didn’t. I hope one day to discover proof.

But I do know this. Champ Ferguson was a regularly commissioned officer of the Confederacy, he followed orders, he fought with tactics that he understood, and he surrendered under terms that he believed were honorable and applicable to him. I know that his trial was a foregone conclusion, and that men lied under oath to help convict him. I know that John Hunt Morgan enlisted him and Fighting Joe Wheeler testified that he was a Confederate officer. I know that he killed some civilians, but I know that civilians such as Tinker Dave Beaty did everything within their power to kill him. I know that Champ Ferguson was tried by scoundrels, hanged by devils, and made a martyr by a vindictive Federal army. I know that his loving wife and daughter brought him here to his adopted home to fulfill his dying wish. I know that his conviction as a war criminal and his subsequent hanging caused such an uproar and fury that General Thomas, in Nashville, never put any others through such a tribulation. I know that Champ reacted to the events around him in the only fashion that he could, and I know that he’d be honored that we have not forgotten his service to the South. He lies here today near Confederate soldiers, in good Rebel soil. His last words were reported to have been, “Lord have mercy on my soul”, and I pray that was the case. Thank you.