Customer Reviews

Champ Ferguson: Confederate Guerilla

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Originally published in 1942, Sensing explored the terror of guerilla warfare in the border state area of south central Kentucky. The book reveals the complexitiy of living through the Civil War, and the dangers of choosing sides. Using trial testimony for the basis of his research, Sensing reveals Ferguson as a haunting character, dangerous,cruel, and legendary. This is a must have for Kentucky Civil War fans as well as Tennessee Civil war buffs. As a resident of the area where Ferguson committed most of his atrocities, I find it facinating look at our history's darker side.

Champ Ferguson was one of those characters in the Civil War whose evaluation seems to depend upon which side is doing the 'evaluating'. Ferguson was hanged for murders he committed during the war in which he fought as a 'guerrilla' (Yankee definition) or 'partisan' (Confederate definition). The problem with most guerrilla/partisan fighters in Ferguson's theater of the war and also in the border states of Kansas and Missouri, was that private feuds often intruded into military actions. Hence, Ferguson's 'murder' of a wounded Union soldier is traced in several instances to attacks upon his family.

But whatever the case, when the time came to hang the tall man, even some Yankees seemed to feel that Ferguson was being hanged for actions that were being 'overlooked' in other theaters of war, especially in northern Virginia where several partisan groups had been VERY active. Commanders such as John S. Mosby and Hanse McNeill had participated in the hanging of Yankee soldiers involved in the destruction of civilian homes in the Shenandoah and elsewhere. While McNeill died during the war, his son (who took over the command) as well as Mosby were not prosecuted afterwards although in Mosby's case, there was some evidence of a desire to have him tried after Ferguson's execution.

The author gives a fairly balanced view of Ferguson's life. Unlike Mosby and other more educated commanders and/or the men who served under them, Ferguson left very little personal record of his thoughts and motives which means that those studying the man can only go by his actions and the evaluation of his contemporaries on both sides.

Champ Ferguson, like Quantrill, the James boys and other 'bloodthirsty guerillas' of the era, is a worthy study for anyone who wishes to understand the tenor of the times in that fratricidal era.

Although written in 1942, I believe this to be the best of the biographies on this notorious character of the Civil War. It is clearly written, and uses much of the actual witness testimony given at the 1865 trial of Champ Ferguson in Nashville. Living within the area of Tennessee where many of these atrocities occurred, it is still a divisive topic among those descendents that chose different sides to support during the war. All of the biographies describe the killings, but the Sensing book brings home the horrifying details in the use of actual witness testimony and Champ's own thoughts about many of the killings in his subsequent interviews with newspaper reporters after the trial and before his execution. On a personal level, I do not know how anyone can come away from reading this with the sense that Champ was doing the killings for God, Country, or the Confederacy. He was a cold blooded, calculating killer, that killed unarmed men for the most part, many sick in bed or lay wounded on the battlefield or in the hospital. He gave no quarter during the war nor asked for any by all accounts. A good read, and puts the reader in the position to make up their own mind about his war time activities.