AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY By Edward Pinkowski The legend of Champ Ferguson will not die. The notorious, unscrupulous leader of a small band of Confederate guerillas was nearly 44 years old when he was found guilty for a bloody reign of terror in Kentucky and Tennessee and hung October 24, 1865, at Nashville, Tennessee. In a military trial, he was charged with fifty counts of murder and other war crimes. "The wounded, the sick, the aged, and even helpless children, were not spared from his brutal murders," said Harper's Weekly . Now, 134 years after his family drove away from the gallows and buried his body where even the devil wouldn't find it, there is a campaign in Tennessee to revive this cold-blooded murderer and robber, for whom the governor of Tennessee gave a reward of $500 for his capture and delivery to the authorities for trial and punishment, and to worship him as a Confederate martyr. If Major John A. Brents, an officer of the First Kentucky Cavalry of the Union Army which chased the wild butcher of the Cumberlands, were alive today, he would be the first to condemn the worship of Champ Ferguson. "He is a thief, robber, counterfeiter, and murderer," he wrote. "His record does not stop with two or three offences, but is one continual wave of blood and plunder." LOG HOUSE To the descendants of Anthony Sadowski in Kentucky, or Sandusky as most of them called themselves in the third generation and further on, Ferguson was the most desperate and fiendish guerilla chief in the Confederate Army. When the North and the South went to war, Emanuel Sandusky, named after his Pennsylvania-born father, had the most children, grandchildren and slaves in Wayne County, Kentucky, a salt works, a water mill, and a plantation that covered half of Mount Pisgah. At 76, he was too old to join the army, but he had more sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons than any other person in the country who fought in the Civil War. Some of them shouldered guns on the Confederate side and others in the Union Army and still others moved to states where they didn't have to take sides. Looking back on the past, the two-story log house, which Emanuel Sandusky built about 1808 and where he raised 21 children, was the most patriotic house in America. This isn't generally known. The children who came out of that house were the fifth generation in America that took up arms to defend their land. In one case, Rosannah, who was born in that log house in 1813, had five sons in the first battle of the Civil War on Kentucky soil. The general who commanded them and won the battle was Polish-born Albin Schoepf. Rosannah, married to James S. Bruton in 1830, was a Gold Star mother as were her mother and grandmother. I could find no other family in the United States to match this record of patriotism. ATROCITIES Just before the Southern campaign in Kentucky fell apart, and while the male flowers of the Sandusky kin were away, Captain Ferguson led his guerillas into Clinton and Wayne counties, stealing horses, mules, cattle, hogs, and all kinds of property, and then crossing the Cumberland mountains into Tennessee, which was the depot for his stolen goods. Ferguson and his gang ransacked Sandusky's plantation several times. Each time they had horses shot from under them. Ferguson paid a heavy price for his atrocities. Six guerillas were killed in Wayne County on Jan. 21, 1863, and one on Feb. 12, 1863. The stories of atrocities in the most gigantic rebellion known in modern times would fill a book. Certainly none had a more bitter memory of Champ Ferguson than the other children and grandchildren of Emanuel Sandusky who in turn told the stories of pillage and blood to the generations that followed. It was worse than the 1780s when Indians stole cattle and horses from the family plantation in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, where Emanuel Sandusky was born, and returned to North Carolina. Jo Ann Reynolds of Illinois still tells stories to her grandchildren and her contacts on the Internet of the time that Ferguson kipnapped two of her kin in Wayne County. One of them was killed and the other escaped. In another story, Gabriel Sandusky, accustomed to plenty of food in the historic log house in Kentucky, was a prisoner of war who starved to death at Andersonville and his grandfather didn't know about it for two years. It was the last straw. The old man died when he heard the story from one of Gabriel's prison buddies. Thus the story of Champ Ferà ‡
From Anne Ferguson;
I would like to add a few things to your article about Confederate Guerilla, Champ Ferguson. Something this article doesn't mention is that the Sandusky's and the Ferguson's were related by marriage. Mr. Pinkowski mentions the comments of descendants of Anthony Sadowski (Sandusky). They said that Champ was the most desperate and fiendish guerilla chief in the Confederate Army. What they failed to mention is that they are related to Champ by the marriage of Anthony Sandusky's first daughter, Susan, to Champ's uncle Benjamin. He also failed to mention that it is well believed among those who hold Champ in esteem that he was defending the honor of his wife and daughter. Champ lived among Union sympathizers who, while he was away from home scouting for the Confederates, caused his wife and daughter to march down the road naked and cook a meal for them in that state of undress. When Champ found out about this, he swore to get his revenge on these 10 or 12 men. In those days in Kentucky, if someone offended your family, you sought revenge on that man's whole family. That was the law of the mountains. Hatfield's and McCoy's come to mind. So Champ killed the men who abused his family and some of their family members as well. I cannot defend him, as I don't believe murder is right, of course, but he did have reason to want those men's hides. Capt. Champ Ferguson is now considered a hero by some militia groups because he was a large, fierce frightening man who was an expert at scouting, deceiving the Union army and an excellent weaponsman. Even the soldiers of Morgan's raiders waited in anticipation to meet the infamous Champ Ferguson. He knew the land of the Kentucky/Tennessee border like no one else. He could recapture rebel prisoners who had been taken by the Union army before the yankees knew what hit them. He was an excellent marksman and was fearless when faced with hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. In the book "Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come", by John Fox, Jr., Champ is called by the name Rebel Jerry Dillon. While the book is a work of fiction, Mr. Fox researched the work very well. He describes the horror of the Civil War and the way in which both armies went about recruiting soldiers. The Union army conscripted any man who owned a slave. According to some of my families papers and Civil War letters, the Confederates simply came to people's homes and "stole" the men of the household. It was nothing for a woman to stand in her kitchen and watch her family members gunned down before her eyes. The atrocities were on both sides, not just the Confederate side. It was the order of the day to steal anything the army could use from anyone who had food, horses, cows, guns. Mr. Fox also shows the tender side of Champ Ferguson when he tells how Champ took to one of the young Rebel soldiers, protecting him like he was his own son. He recaptured the young boy when the boy was taken prisoner by the Union army. Champ's own son had died as a child of one of the plagues of the time. His wife also was taken by the disease. He remarried after that and had a daughter. Champ's home was burned because of his involvement with the rebels. He had much to be angry about. So you see, to me Mr. Pinkowski didn't tell the whole story about Capt. Champ and one must know the whole story to stand in judgment of him. By the way, I am not a descendant of Champ Ferguson's family but I believe (but so far have not proven) that I am Champ's 1st cousin 6 times removed. I believe that my ggg-grandfather, William Ferguson was Champ's grandfather's brother. My family and Champ's lived in the same area of Clinton Co. KY and both my grandfather's and gg-grandfather's names were Champion Ferguson. Guerilla Champ's daughter's name was Anne Ferguson. And so is mine. Keep on Rootin" Anne Ferguson (aka SweetShrub)