Champ Ferguson, Appalachian Outlaw
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ย. 2022
- During the Civil War a man from Kentucky who had moved to Tennessee joined the Confederate side as a guerrilla fighter. He soon became a Confederate vigilante, killing anyone he knew who had any connections with the Union. It was an infamous incident at a Confederate hospital in Saltville, Virginia, that resulted in his capture and arrest by Confederate authorities in 1865.
Today we tell the story of an outlaw from both sides in the Civil War: Champ Ferguson.
Thanks for watching and for sharing our stories with your friends!
Gravesite photo by Brian Stansberry - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Mouth of Calfkiller River photo by Brian Stansberry - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... - บันเทิง
ferguson was my great, great, great grandmothers nephew. tinker dave beaty was my great, great, great grandfathers cousin. my ancestors were obliged to abandon their farm until the end of the war because of fergusons depredations
My mothers family is from Clinton County Kentucky. Champ is a Cousin of mine. I've heard my grandfather talk of Champ although he heard this from his grandfather who actually knew him. Kentucky of course was a border state and divided so my grandfather's relatives were union supporters.
My cousins the Fergusons talk of Champ as he is their grandfather many times removed but thier Grandfathers/Great Grandfathes were actually we're alive when Champ was alive....so we are old...lol
Thanks for keeping this alive as our children and grandchildren are not interested in such historical thing with some exceptions of course.
P.S. I smell the makings of a major motion picture!
This would be an interesting movie, especially if you focus on his encounters with Tinker Dave Beaty, which were intense. Thank you for watching!
I live in Saltville Virginia and this story is still very much alive. The hospital wasn’t in Saltville though. It was in Emory Virginia at Emory and Henry college.
Thanks for the information. We may update the video and if we do, we'll include that.
Do they still do the reenactment down there?
Thx for this video! Would you mind citing sources for the still house, gambling, hog sale, larceny charges, reed’s relation to the evans’ brothers, slicing the thumb, rolling heads down hillsides, Cherokee stopping the saltville massacre, killing 2 men after being discharged, and champ’s statement upon being handed a guilty verdict? I haven’t been able to get my eyes on any historical documents outlining these events, but I would like to. Ty!
Thank you; we're glad you liked the video. Here's a partial list of the sources I used to put this story together, and I believe all the incidents you asked about are contained in them:
Johnson, James, Execution of Champ Ferguson, James K. Polk Papers, Box 1, Folder 9. (Tennessee State Library and Archives; Nashville Dispatch, 22 October 1865). This talks of his speech after being found guilty.
Smith, Troy D. (December 2001). "Champ Ferguson: An American Civil War Rebel Guerrilla". Civil War Times.
Margaret D. Binnicker, "Scott County", Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture Encyclopedia
McKnight, Brian D. “Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia.” (2011)
Stacy Graham, “Samuel ‘Champ’ Ferguson”, Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture Encyclopedia
www.kyphilom.com/www/text/champ.htm This one is where I found the thumb incident.
there is no rules of war, nor should they be.
I`m Paul Ferguson from north Alabama, wonder if I`m related?
My name is Bobby Ferguson. I live in north Georgia. I wonder if im related to Champ.
I do always look forward to your stories. 6th generation Texan, but seems most of my genealogical records lead through Appalachia. Common among us old anglo Texas families. And it does seem to dovetail smoothly into our family attitudes and traditions.
Probably because a lot of Appalachian people migrated to Texas in the 1830's along with the Austins, who were from near Wytheville, Virginia, at a place called Austinville. Texas has deep Appalachian roots!
This is a little off subject . I would like your thoughts on The Feral people of Appalachia , truth or ghost story ? My granny would scare us with tells of these people when we were small
It's likely just folklore, although some of the mountains along the Tennessee/North Carolina border are remote enough for folks to disappear in for years. Two true examples, though, might be the Wild Man of the Smokies, where a spurned teacher took to the woods to live life as close to nature as he could or the hermit of Big Bald Mountain who wanted to get as far away from anyone else as he could.
I don't know why this has not been brought up by anybody but I have been studying Appalachian history my whole life and there are accounts of feral people going back over a century but there is also an explanation the feral people are melungeons there may be other feral people but there were many feral melungeons documented in the mountains well past 1900 and surely I can't be the only one who has noticed this it is not that farfetched if you think about it and do a little research you should get a copy of the book Alec Stewart portrait of a pioneer that was written by the guy who I believe started the museum of Appalachia and read what he said about this he didn't call them feral but if you do some research it kind of starts making sense
@@scottjohnson9642 I will get the book . Thank you .
Champ used his farm to pay his two lawyers that defended him. I have a copy of the letter he wrote in prison lamenting the fact he had nothing to leave his poor wife and daughter.
Wow! You have a piece of history in your possession, it appears...
you talking about his farm on the calfkiller River? or in Kentucky?
I just started to read up about these men sue monday and champ.you dont hear about the bushwacker in school just the big battles and about the generals not these giys i think some of there story are more interesting to me.the fighting in the Missouri before the war started was the real start of war and it did have something about slavery in those two states but i think the other states fought for state rights .those where some real tough men back then .you can see why men like jesse james fought in the war .those men after the war had no chance if they where Gorillaz .because they didnt fight in the reg army and where branded outlaws with no country to come back too.i think if they let all of them come back as they did with the regular army guys people like jesse wouldnt have turn out as they did so the government had a little to do with all this crazy shit that happened after the war.
Champ was a hell of a man
Tinker dave wasn't no saint either
He sure wasn't. What saved him was that while he did many of the same things Champ was accused of doing, he was on the side of the Union, and thus available to testify against Ferguson in a U.S. military trial.
Y'all sure do give the Yankee side of the story
I don't think so....what's the Rebel side of the story?
Well, the confederates were the ones that murdered soldiers, mostly black soldiers, in cold blood
Champ Ferguson got what he had coming
yes they do.
@@StoriesofAppalachiaConfederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War In Appalachia. is a great unbiased account of him and others around these parts.