Cumberland Blood: Champ Ferguson's Civil War

6. “A damned good christian!—and I dont reckon he minds dying”

80 6 ) “A damned good christian!—and I dont reckon he minds dying” THROUGHOUT 1862, FERGUSON SOUGHT TO HAVE HIS gang of outlaws accepted as a regular Confederate company, but no one seemed to want to accept responsibility for them. On Morgan’s First Kentucky Raid, Duke observed that Ferguson commanded an independent company. These men, he added, were “very daring fighters” but had not enlisted into Confederate service. Rather they “were intensely attached to Ferguson” and “acknowledged no obedience to Confederate orders.” Yet, admitted Duke, they served frequently with the Confederate cavalry, and most often with Morgan.1 Ferguson, however, saw things differently. For much of the war he claimed to belong to Morgan’s command. In 1862 Morgan had been authorized to recruit Kentucky companies for his 2nd Kentucky Cavalry and his brigade, and he may have authorized Ferguson to raise troops. Ferguson later related that he “always acted under orders from John Morgan” and rode with him on all 81 “A damned good christian!” of his raids into Kentucky and Tennessee. But he never remained with him. When Morgan returned south, Ferguson and his men always stayed around their homes in Tennessee.2 According to General Joseph Wheeler, who testified during Ferguson’s trial, General E. Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces in East Tennessee, authorized Ferguson to raise a company. Regardless of who authorized it, Ferguson recorded on at least one muster roll that Morgan had commissioned him to raise the company. But he then failed to note, in the spaces provided, the regiment to which his company belonged, and the superior officer to whom he answered.3 That fall, Confederate General Samuel Bell Maxey met Ferguson in Knoxville, Tennessee, while Ferguson was raising troops for his company. Maxey was a Kentucky native and had practiced law in Albany prior to the war. He and his wife had known Ferguson for years. In a 10 October 1862 letter to her he mentioned that Ferguson “was just from Sparta where he saw your father and brothers John & Jimmy [Denton]—They are all well there—Jimmy is in with Bledsoe, but I learn that he and John will probably join Ferguson.” Maxey’s nephew, John Denton, did subsequently join Ferguson’s guerrilla company.4 Maxey then added that the Yankee Home Guard companies around Sparta were a real problem, and Ferguson’s men, he reasoned , should be accepted into service to handle them. “Champ says the Bushwackers are still at there murderous work,” he noted. To deal with the threat, Maxey added, “I propose, that if the Govt. will receive his company, he will clean them out. I have no doubt he can do it.” Maxey told his wife that he had sent Ferguson with some dispatches to one of his regiments that was supporting Smith in Albany. Then he added, “I have requested Gen Smith to receive him with his Company, which will no doubt be done.”5 A. F. Capps, a member of McHenry’s guerrilla company, met Ferguson near Livingston as he was attempting to entice men to join his band. Capps was fully aware of Ferguson’s brutal reputation; he had been present when Ferguson killed young Font Zachary. Curious, Capps asked Ferguson to document his authority for raising a company. “He showed me a writing,” Capps later testified, “as I understood it from the Secretary of War of the Confederacy, 82 “A damned good christian!” authorizing him to raise a company.” Capps considered the document to be a genuine commission, and watched as Ferguson held elections.6 On 19 November 1862, the men elected Ferguson captain, Henry W. Siblet first lieutenant, and Andrew H. Foster and William R. Latham second lieutenants. Ferguson’s companion, Raines Philpott , became one of the sergeants, and Coony Smith one of the privates. Whereas Tinker Dave’s company was made up almost exclusively of men from Fentress County, Tennessee, Ferguson’s men came from all across the area. Of seventy-three men who are identified on prewar census records, twenty-six had resided in Fentress County and six in Overton County, Tennessee. Ferguson also had many men from Kentucky: twenty-two came from his home in Clinton County, and nineteen were from neighboring Wayne County. Most were farmers, but the unit included a teacher in his twenties, Fate Allen, as well as seventeen-year-old William Hildreth, a student. The company also attracted...