The Other Confederate War Criminal – Champ Ferguson
150 years ago last week, on October 20, 1865, Champ Ferguson was hanged in Nashville. He and Andersonville’s commandant, Henry Wirz, were the only Confederates tried and executed for war crimes after the Civil War.
I wrote about one of Ferguson’s crimes last year here: http://emergingcivilwar.com/2014/10/02/they-intended-to-kill-all-of-them-battle-and-death-in-southwest-Virginia/.
Ferguson was unrepentant, saying in the court:
“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 lies in a small cemetery near Sparta, Tennessee.
There are rival historical markers for Champ Ferguson that tell different stories. The one in Albany KY, his birthplace, calls him a terrorist; while the one in White county, where he is buried, lauds him as the “defender” of Cumberland and Hickory Valley Confederates.