Synopses & Reviews
This amazing story of bloody guerilla warfare along the Kentucky-Tennessee border presents a tale and a protagonist unique in the annals of the Civil War.
When the Civil War began in 1861, the men of the Cumberland Mountain districts chose sides and pursued a private war with each other. The most infamous of their number was Champ Ferguson. In this classic study, Thurman Sensing provides the only available book-length account of Ferguson's brutal deeds, his capture, his trial, his execution at the end of the war, and the legendary ruse by which he allegedly escaped hanging. Long regarded as a collector's item by Civil War buffs, the reappearance of this book in a paperback edition will be welcomed by many.
Review
Although Ferguson survived the Civil War unscathed and offered to surrender to Federal authorities, Ferguson's crimes had assumed so awful a stature that the Military Division of Tennessee brushed aside his offer, arrested him, tried him, and hung him on October 20, 1865. But the trial of Ferguson is important for Sensing in another way, for the trial becomes a lens through which we peer at the bitter, remorseless nature of guerilla warfare.
--Civil War Book Exchange
Synopsis
This story of guerilla warfare along the Kentucky -- Tennessee border presents a tale unique in the annals of the Civil War.
Synopsis
By the end of the Civil War, Champ Ferguson was accused of personally killing fifty-three people, including children, the elderly, and wounded soldiers in their hospital beds. Up in the Cumberland Mountain districts of Tennessee and Kentucky families had chosen sides at the start of the war and then pursued a private war with each other. Champ Ferguson was the most infamous of their number, whose guerilla exploits were interspersed with periods of service as a scout for Morgan's Men and as a member of Joe Wheeler's cavalry.
He was one of two Confederates ever executed by the Union Army, if, indeed, he was actually executed.
Synopsis
When the Civil War began in 1861, the men of the Cumberland Mountain districts of Tennessee and Kentucky chose sides and pursued a private war with each other. Often motivated by vengeance and vendetta, their armed bands had only irregular connections with either the Union or Confederate armies. Their fighting was deadly, with little regard for rules of engagement and with little quarter given.
The most infamous of their number was Champ Ferguson, whose guerilla exploits were interspersed with periods of service as a scout for Morgan's Men and as a member of Joe Wheeler's cavalry. By the end of the Civil War, Ferguson was accused of personally killing fifty-three people, including children, the elderly and wounded soldiers in their hospital beds. In this classic study, first published in 1942, Thurman Sensing provides the only available book-length account of Champ Ferguson's brutal deeds, his capture, his trial and his execution (or according to one version, the ruse by which he escaped hanging) at the end of the war.
Though there is little that is admirable in Champ Ferguson's story, this fascinating account of his life, long regarded as a collector's item by Civil War buffs, adds a unique dimension to our understanding of the horrors of America's Civil War.