Yankee troops, based out of Sparta and headed by Col. William B. Stokes had a couple of skirmishes with Confederate guerrillas headed by Capt. Champ Ferguson and Col. John M. Hughs in the Calfkiller area. Being ambushed, the federal forces were taking on more casualties than was acceptable.
After a major skirmish at Dug Hill, Col. Stokes sent out a party to collect his dead soldiers and bring them back to Sparta the next day. Capt. Joseph Blackburn was sent out the next day to engage the enemy. About the same place as the first battle, they found Ferguson and his men waiting on them. One Yankee recalled many years later that Champ and his men came running at them on their horses, “screaming like wild men.”
Words and bullets were exchanged. This time, the Yankees noticed Champ sink down into his saddle and turn his horse away, heading up a narrow hollow and into the mountains.
A couple of days later, Col. Stokes was in his headquarters in the upper story of a building on the northeast corner of the courthouse square in Sparta.
“Well, wee,” ‘Stokes told some of his men, “I believe old Champ was wounded in that spot with Blackburn and the boys. If he was, he’s hid out in the bluffs up there on the Calfkiller. There’s an old doctor up there who knows where he’s hid.”
Plans were made to take around 50 troops to pay a visit to Dr. Tom Moore’s home. Col. Stokes told his men not to kill the doctor, but to hang him, “but not until he’s dead. He must tell where Champ is.
They arrived at the home of Dr. Tom Moore and strung him up and interrogated him. Soldiers remembered that he gave up needed information without much coaxing. The doctor told them that he’d found a wounded Ferguson about three miles up the Calfkiller, atop a high peak of the mountain.
Yankees quickly mounted their horses and took off. In about a mile, they noticed two men running out of a house where the Widow Scott lived on a farm in England’s Cove. They didn’t fire any shots at the fleeing men, fearing they would alert Ferguson.
In less than five minutes, they dismounted at the foot of the hill. While some were detailed to watch the horses, the others wound their way through thick brush and up the mountain.
Arriving on top of the bluffs, soldiers discovered Mrs. Ferguson. Directly under where she stood, they discovered a very nice dry and comfortable room in a rock house that nature had formed. In the room they found a bright fire burning and a plentiful supply of wood. They also found lots of meat and flour, a coffee pot and lots of rags that were being used to dress Champ’s wounds—but no Champ.
When asked where Champ had gone, Mrs. Ferguson told the soldiers that he had left for Kentucky that morning. They scoffed at the answer, knowing that she would never tell them the truth.
The Yankees figured that Ferguson had several men with him. Weighing between 200 and 250 lbs. they figured that he had plenty enough help being carried away after being alerted by the men who had ran from the Widow Scott’s house.
As they left, Mrs. Ferguson was standing with her coffee pot in hand, probably thinking that they would take it if she didn’t snatch it up. Champ would live to fight many more battles.
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