Thursday 8 August 2013

Sue Mundy / Jerome Clarke





While not a Missouri Partisan Ranger, Sue Mundy was joined by Quantrill and several members of Quantrill's band when they entered Kentucky in late 1864 or early 1865.
Sue Mundy was the fictitious name of the 'Girl Guerrilla' who operated in Kentucky and whom Quantrill joined on occasion while in Kentucky. The name Sue Mundy was thought up by a newspaper reporter in order to embarrass the Federals for allowing him to operate so freely.
Actually, Sue Mundy was a young man, small and long-haired, whose real name was Jerome Marcellus Clarke. Clarke was the scion of a distinguished family. The newspaper had brazenly invented his female persona - even borrowing the name of a notorious local madam - to embarass the Federal army commander in Louisville, with whom it was feuding.
The hoax worked, and by early 1865 the capture of Sue Mundy's gang had become an urgent priority, especially after well-publicized accounts related that "she" had joined forces with William Quantrill's Raiders.
On the night of Feb. 2, 1865 the combined force of Quantrill and Mundy burned the railroad depot and freight cars to the torch at Lair Station, Kentucy. Passing by New Market at 11 a.m. on Feb. 8, the gang attacked a Federal wagon train. The guerrillas killed three soldiers, captured four others, burned a number of wagons and shot all the mules.
A few weeks before the war's end, a troop of Wisconsin cavalry captured Clarke in a Kentucky barn. He demanded to be treated as a prisoner of war, but because of Sue Mundy's infamous celebrity, he was hanged as a criminal instead.


Henry C. Magruder, Marcellus "Sue Mundy" Clarke, Samuel "One Arm" Berry

1 comment:

  1. It's good that we remember also Our History, what the South was about and the part that it has play in US History. Some would have everyone to believe that the War was about Slavery, it was not, it was about Rights! There was also Blacks fight in the Confederate Army.

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