| Kill him." The lion was tied and the jackals could howl! But the trial dragged on to its bitter end and the acts related by the witnesses affected the lives of many personspersons whose descendants still live throughout the length and breadth of the Cumberlands. |
| So far as I am aware, I first came upon the name "Champ Ferguson" while reading Morgan's Cavalry, by General Basil W. Duke, brother-in-law of General John H. Morgan. In this book, published in 1906, the author stated that in June, 1862, at Sparta, Tennessee, Morgan's Men, on their first Kentucky raid, were joined by Champ Ferguson, who reported as a guide, and that he there saw for the first time a man of whom he had heard much, one who had the reputation of never giving quarter, and one who, at the close of the War, probably did not know himself how many men he had killed. According to Duke, Morgan's cavalrymen crowded around Ferguson, anxious to see in the flesh this man who had become even thus early in the War almost a legend in that section. |
| It occurred to me that a man who could so interest Morgan's Men must be an interesting character indeed. I therefore decided to find out what more I could about Champ Ferguson, having no idea a great deal of information would be available. At the time, I was not aware that Ferguson had been on trial before a military court in Nashville during the summer of 1865, charged with the murder of fifty-three persons, and that the local newspapers had carried very full accounts of the trial. |
| The search for information led me in many directionsto the War Department at Washington, to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, to various memoirs and books of history, even to personal conversations and correspondence in connection with visits to his birthplace, the scenes of his activities, and his final resting place. The largest volume of information, however, came from the accounts of his trial in the Nashville newspapers of 1865, the Dispatch, the Daily Union, and the Daily Press and Times. |
| An astonishing and unexpected amount of materials was thus |
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