Champ Ferguson

Metadata
Citation
Documents
Download

Birth Date

1821-11-29

Death Date

1865-10-20

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

"Champ Ferguson" in the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/N00008752, (accessed November 4, 2025).

Download XML

Clinton County, Kentucky, farmer and guerrilla. Cumberland County, Kentucky, native. Son of William R. Ferguson and Zilpha Huff Ferguson. Married to Ann Eliza Smith Ferguson in 1843. Father of [unknown] Ferguson. Married to Martha Owens Ferguson on July 23, 1848. Father of Ann Elizabeth Ferguson. Farmer in Clinton County in 1860. Owned three enslaved persons in 1860. Served in an independent guerrilla company of cavalry (C.S.A.) as commander. Found guilty of 53 counts of murder by a U.S. military commission in September 1865. Executed on October 20, 1865, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Clinton County, District 1, p.178B Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Clinton County, p. 173. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Clinton County, p. 1. Thurman Sensing, Champ Ferguson: Confederate Guerrilla, pbk. ed. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1994), 2. Thomas D. Mays, Cumberland Blood: Champ Ferguson’s Civil War (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), 12-13. Brian Dallas McKnight, Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), 13. Papers of and Relating to Military and Civilian Personnel, compiled 1874 - 1899, documenting the period 1861 – 1865 NARA RG 109, Microfilm Series M347, Roll 0128.

Civil War Governors of Kentucky is always evolving. Help us improve the edition by suggesting a correction or addition to this record.

Suggest a correction