On October 20th, 1865, Confederate guerrilla Champ Ferguson was marched to the gallows in Nashville, Tennessee. Just ten days prior, he had been found guilty of 53 counts of murder, though that was simply the official number. According to Ferguson himself, he had killed well over 100 men.
Friends, neighbors, wounded prisoners, and anyone he considered a threat faced his wrath. Even as the noose was placed around his neck, he remained defiant, stating that he was a Southern man from the start and that he would die a rebel.
Samuel Champ Ferguson was born in Clinton County, Kentucky, on November 29th, 1821. The eldest of 10 children, he grew up in the Kentucky Highlands, a hill country along the border with Tennessee populated mostly by poor farmers. He received little formal schooling, only about three months, and followed his father into farming and horse trading.
Ferguson acquired a reputation as a rowdy, quarrelsome type who was partial to gambling, drinking, and fighting. This reputation was cemented when he stabbed a constable to death in August 1858. According to Ferguson, the incident began over a hog deal gone bad.
He had sold hogs on credit to brothers Floyd and Alexander Evans. When they failed to pay him back, one of Champ’s brothers took Floyd’s mare as payment. Shortly afterward, at a camp meeting, the Evans brothers, along with their cousin, Constable James Reed, and several others, decided to attack Ferguson. According to him, it was 20 against one, so he took out his Bowie knife and started stabbing. By the time the fight ended, Constable Reed was dead, and Floyd Evans was seriously wounded.
When the Civil War broke out a few years later, the area was deeply divided. Most of Champ’s siblings and even his own mother were staunch Union supporters. One of his brothers would die fighting for the Union. Champ, however, decided to go with the Rebels.
A legend grew that his young son was shot dead by Yankee soldiers who then forced his wife and teenage daughter to march naked down the street. This story was false. Champ’s son had passed away from illness years before the war began, and Champ himself denied the story about his wife and daughter, calling it absurd.
In reality, it was the stabbing incident that caused him to join the Confederates. Champ was arrested for the killing, but the case was taking a long time to go to trial. Local authorities offered him a clean slate if he enlisted with the Rebels. Ferguson stated, “When the war broke out, I was induced to join the army on the promise that all prosecution in that case would be abandoned. This is how I came to take up arms.”
In the fall of 1861, Champ signed on with a guerrilla outfit led by Scott Bledsoe. It wasn’t long before he started running a company of his own. That is when the killings began in earnest.
For the most part, Ferguson used the war as an excuse to kill black people and settle old scores. On November 1st, 1861, he murdered his old friend William Frog in Clinton County. The two had known each other since childhood. Frog was bedridden with the measles at the time. Ferguson walked past Frog’s wife and shot Frog dead where he lay.
About a month later, he killed another man named Reuben Wood for a similar reason. Wood reminded Ferguson of their past friendship, and Champ replied, “You have always treated me like a gentleman, but you have been to Camp Robinson, and I intend to kill you. Don’t you beg, and don’ you dodge.” Wood managed to knock Ferguson’s gun away with a hatchet before escaping, but he died two days later from his wounds.
Ferguson did not discriminate when it came to age. In early April 1862, he killed a 16-year-old boy who had made the mistake of carrying a shotgun. According to Ferguson, he had been given authority to kill anyone he found carrying a weapon. Despite the boy surrendering his shotgun, Champ gunned him down, then took his knife to the corpse. He went on to kill three additional members of the boy’s family, including the grandfather.
The killings continued. He shot another man to death even as the man’s daughter clung to him. He killed another man named Wash Tabor. Both were supposedly aligned with the local Yankee militia.
Ferguson did have a nemesis named Dave Beatty, also known as Tinker Dave. Beatty was a guerrilla leader fighting for the Union. According to a Nashville paper, Beatty “fought Champ Ferguson from the beginning to the end of his career. They have shot each other innumerable times and each has received ugly wounds.”
Despite the animosity, there appeared to be a mutual respect. After the war, Ferguson said, “Well, there are meaner men than Tinker Dave. He fought me bravely and gave me some heavy licks, but I always gave him as good as he sent. I have nothing against Tinker Dave.”
Ferguson would occasionally ride with regular Confederate forces, scouting for General John Hunt Morgan and harassing Union troops. But for the most part, his war seemed to be against whoever had wronged him in the past.
Later in the war, he linked up with Major General Joseph Wheeler and was sent to report to General Breckinridge in Southwest Virginia. It was there, at Saltville, that Ferguson committed his most infamous act.
On October 2nd, 1864, Union soldiers attacked the rebels protecting Saltville in what turned out to be a resounding Confederate victory. As the Yankees took flight, they left behind wounded soldiers, many of whom were black. Ferguson and his men went to work. Witnesses testified that they saw Champ moving across the battlefield, coldly and systematically executing wounded prisoners.
One survivor recalled Ferguson approaching a wounded white trooper and demanding to know why he had come to fight with “these damned negroes.” He then drew his pistol and asked, “Where will you have it? In the back or the face?”
The executions continued the following day. Ferguson strolled into a Confederate hospital and began going from bed to bed, killing a total of eight prisoners.
Champ was not the only one killing prisoners. Many regular Confederates did the same, despite their own officers trying to stop them. Most estimates put the number of black soldiers executed at around 46. Ferguson would later be formally charged with 15 counts of murder for his actions at Saltville.
The massacre was considered so outrageous that the Confederates eventually arrested Champ and held him in Wytheville, Virginia. Two months later, around the same time Lee surrendered, they let him go.
Despite the war being officially over, Champ went back to bushwhacking. It wasn’t until May 26th, 1865, that he was finally taken back into custody in Sparta, Tennessee. By that point, he and his family had moved to White County.
Ferguson figured he would be paroled like everyone else who laid down their guns. Instead, he was tried for murder. He was charged with 53 counts and put on trial before a military court. The trial became a national sensation.
Witnesses lined up to testify against him, including Tinker Dave. Despite having men like General Wheeler testify to his character, Ferguson was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
The execution took place on October 20th, 1865, at the Nashville prison. Ferguson was guarded by black soldiers from the 15th US Infantry. Around 300 people were given passes to witness the event.
When asked for a final statement, he declared, “I was a Southern man at the start. 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.”
It wasn’t until they placed the hood over his head that he cried out, “Oh Lord, have mercy on me.” Moments later, he went swinging.
His body was returned to White County, as he requested, and buried in a comb grave just north of Sparta. A comb grave is a burial style where a stone slab is arranged in a tent-like shape over the grave, resembling the comb of a rooster garde. Ferguson’s grave is still visible at the France Cemetery off Highway 84.
There are rumors that Ferguson faked his own death. The legend says his wife bribed the executionerhen fled west. However, census records place his wife and daughter still living in White County, Tennessee, in 1870cars later in Montgomery County, Kansas, in 1880. They spent the rest of their lives without Ferguson.