Champ Ferguson Champ Ferguson ( November 29 , 1821 – October 20 , 1865 ) was a notorious Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War . He claimed to have killed over 100 Union soldiers and pro - Union civilians . Early life and origins of Confederate stance . Ferguson was born in Clinton County , Kentucky , on the Tennessee border , the oldest of ten children . Like his father , he became a farmer . However , Ferguson earned a reputation for violence . Reportedly , in 1858 , he led a group of men who tied Sheriff James Read of Fentress County , Tennessee to a tree . Ferguson then rode his horse around the tree , hacking at Read repeatedly with a sword until he was dead . He is also claimed to have stabbed a man named Evans at a camp meeting . Evans survived . In the 1850s , Ferguson moved with his wife and family to the Calfkiller River Valley in White County , Tennessee . For reasons not clear , Ferguson developed a passionate hatred for the Union cause . One tradition says that Union soldiers raped his wife and daughter . Another version is that he held grudges against a number of local men who supported the Union . Ferguson himself claimed that Confederate officers promised him they would overlook his previous behavior if he supported the southern war effort in the area . Guerrilla activities . During the Civil War , East Tennessee , a mostly mountainous region , was almost evenly divided over secession from the Union . The terrain and lack of law enforcement during the war gave guerrillas and other irregular military groups significant freedom of action . There are substantial numbers of recorded incidents of guerrilla and revenge attacks , especially on the Cumberland Plateau . Even families were often divided , and one of Champ Ferguson ' s brothers was killed as a member of the Union ' s 1st Kentucky Cavalry . Early in the war , Ferguson organized a guerrilla company and began attacking any civilians he believed supported the Union . His men did cooperated with Confederate military units led by Brig . Gen . John Hunt Morgan and Maj . Gen . Joseph Wheeler when they were in the area , and some evidence indicates that Morgan commissioned him as a captain of partisan rangers . Nevertheless , Ferguson ' s men were seldom subject to military discipline and often violated the normal rules of warfare . There are stories of Ferguson ' s alleged sadism , including tales that he on occasion would decapitate his prisoners and roll their heads down hillsides and was willing to kill elderly and bedridden men . He was once arrested by the Confederate authorities and charged with murdering a government official and was imprisoned for two months in Wytheville , Virginia , but it could not be proven and he was finally released . Trial and hanging . At the war ' s end , Ferguson disbanded his men and returned home to his farm . As soon as the Union troops knew he was back , they arrested him and took him to Nashville , where he was tried for 53 murders . Ferguson ' s trial attracted national attention and soon became a major media event . One of Ferguson ' s main adversaries on the Union side , " Tinker Dave " Beaty , testified against him . Beaty had led his own band of guerrillas and side each had done his best to kill the other . Ferguson acknowledged his band had killed many of the victims named and said he had killed over 100 men himself . Nevertheless , he insisted it was only part of his duty as a soldier . The number of wounded men and prisoners his guerrillas killed after the Battle of Saltville is a matter of dispute . The victims were members of the all - black 5th United States Colored Cavalry and their white officers . Ferguson and his men were charged with murdering the wounded in their hospital beds , and only the arrival of Thomas ' Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders had prevented their complete slaughter . As soon as he learned that regular Confederates had arrived , Ferguson had led his men away . On October 10 , 1865 , Champ was found guilty and sentenced to hang . He made a statement in response to the verdict :