The Cumberland Gap & Murderous Champ Ferguson

Have you ever been through the Cumberland Gap, the pass over the Appalachian Mountains where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky intersect? I’ve not been through the gap since it’s not on the way to anywhere I’ve been. I’ve not driven on the road or hiked up the side of a mountain to see the panoramic view of the pass. And now that’s a niggling irritation, because the Cumberland Gap has unexpectedly become a key piece of geography to the plot in Redeeming Honor.

I’m tempted to jump in the car and drive there, but it’s a long way. Besides, I’m not writing a travel guide or painting long word-pictures describing the scenic beauty of the gap, I’m just putting some characters there for a day. But it doesn’t feel right to not have walked the ground where some of the action in my book occurs.  There are other places in my novels that I’ve also not visited, and each time I’ve felt that same frustration. It’s a fear that as a writer of historical novels, I’m not getting the historical part right, even if it’s part of the background.

Moving on, I wrote a post a while back about a feisty Texas Confederate officer who led a band of partisan cavalrymen. His colorful name was Clubfoot Fort.  I lamented that there won’t be a place in the McBee novels for him, since he fought in the wrong place, far away from the battles in Virginia.

 

Again unexpectedly, I’ve found another historical figure to fill the same role as Clubfoot.  His name was Captain Champ Ferguson, and he was one of only two Confederates to be tried in a court of law and hung after the war for crimes committed against the Union. (The other man was the commander of the prisoner of war camp at Andersonville).

Champ Ferguson was a violent, murderous man even before the war started. In 1858 he captured and tied a local sheriff to a tree and riding his horse around and around the tree, slashed the sheriff to death with a saber. During the war he led a band of partisans in upper Tennessee, lower Kentucky, and the southwest corner of Virginia, raising hell with civilians who were openly loyal to the Union, and ambushing small elements of the Federal army. By his own admission Ferguson personally killed over a hundred Union soldiers and Unionist civilians.

Ferguson’s role in Redeeming Honor won’t be minor, and it won’t gloss over the murderous nature of the man. I think readers will remember him, even if that memory causes folks to cringe.

Finally, today my mind is on the murdered Marines and sailor in Chattanooga. Bless the souls of those servicemen who are this week’s newest victims of the modern breed of suicidal guerilla fighter, terrorists who bring their war to our cities. Kamikaze fighters armed with AK 47’s, or homemade bombs, or plain old pistols.

Free countries have a hard time preventing that sort of terrorism. My brother, who lives in Chattanooga, and I argue about the effectiveness of a widely-armed, open-carry everyday everywhere, populace in preventing or stopping such terrorists before they can commit mass murder. He's an advocate of "an armed society is a polite society" train of thought. I'm not so sure.

As an old school principal, my thoughts often go back to the mass murder of the kindergarten students in their classroom a couple of years ago. Would armed teachers or an armed principal been able to stop the deranged young man? Or better, would the public knowledge that teachers might be armed have prevented the act altogether? No one knows. I can’t guess.

I personally hope we won’t return to the days of the Wild West with a hog-leg on every man’s hip or a dainty automatic nestled in the small of every woman’s back. (Wouldn’t that just spoil a romantic moment? One’s gentle but eagerly exploring fingers encountering the hard straight edge of a pistol grip instead of a sweetly curving soft patch of lady. No doubt it would prevent the need for a gal to ask “What part of no don’t you understand?”)   

I think toting guns along as we go about our daily business would be a giant step backward for our civilized society. But on the other hand, I don’t want my family to become victims of a random terrorist any more than the next guy does. For me it’s a tough one to call.