Champ Ferguson: The Man Who Claimed He Killed Over 100 Men

In May of eighteen sixty-five, with the war finally over, a corn-and-hog farmer named Champ Ferguson rode home to the Calfkiller River valley near Sparta, White County, Tennessee, expecting the same parole every other soldier was signing. He did not get it. This is the full story of Samuel "Champ" Ferguson, from his Kentucky boyhood and his early reputation for trouble to the vicious irregular border war he waged against the Unionist Tinker Dave Beaty across the Cumberland counties. It follows him east to Saltville, Virginia, and the events there that would seal his fate, then into the Nashville courtroom where Judge Advocate A. C. Blackman and defense attorney Jo Conn Guild fought over a single question: was he a soldier or an outlaw. The verdict, the sentence, and the strange final difference between two men who rode the same ridges close out one of Appalachia's most haunting Civil War stories. Researched from court records, contemporary newspapers, and historical archives. Archival images are public domain or used for historical commentary; where no photograph survives, imagery is illustrative. Subscribe for more true stories from the Appalachian Mountains. #Appalachia #AppalachianHistory #TrueCrime #AppalachianCases