From John Britton Wells, III, and James M. Prichard, _10th Kentucky Cavalry, CSA, "May's-Trimble's-Diamond's 'Yankee Chasers'"_, Gateway Press, Baltimore, MD, 1996; p. 13:

"Captain Diamond was camped near Hazel Green on January 18, 1863, when a messenger brought an urgent call for help from Henry Chapman Swango. The uncle of the aforementioned Captain David Swango, Chapman had abandoned his plans to join May and enlisted in Captain John Bradshaw's company of the 2nd Battalion of Kentucky Mounted Rifles. The elder Swango had learned that John Moore, a notorious Unionist home guard, was present with several followers at his home on Devil's Creek near Campton."

"According to an account collected by WPA volunteers some eighty years later, Swango and a detachment from the 2nd Mounted Rifles surrounded the Moore cabin while the Unionists were celebrating a wedding. The rebel leader boldly approached the cabin door and ordered Moore to surrender. The home guards opened fire and in the sharp fighting that followed both Moore and Swango were killed. Driven off by the cornered Unionists, the rebels were forced to leave Swango's body sprawled on the front porch."

"Upon learning of Swango's death, Diamond gathered his men and atacked the Moore cabin on January 19th. The skirmish immediately became a deadly struggle for the possession of Swango's body. Sergeant James W. McFaul fell seriously wounded with a gunshot wound through both hips. Tradition states that Diamond himself with Robert Snodgrass, a member of the 2nd Rifles, were also slightly wounded. The same source states that the home guards were finally driven off, leaving two more of the number, Billy Moore and Hiram Baker, dead on the field."

"Diamond subsequently reported that his men killed one Unionist, wounded two more and captured a horse. Whatever the facts may be, the Devil's Creek fight was a brutal affair that symbolized the deadly, interfamily feud-like aspect of the war in the mountains. The same WPA account states that a woman, Martha Moore, was also among the killed that day."

You should ask Jim if there is any mention in the court records for that county (Wolfe). Jim will probably prove me wrong, but very few if any of these war-time actions were prosecuted post-war as murders or war crimes. As far as an investigation is concerned, that assumes that the civil authorities were still able to execute their duties during the time of the troubles. Few of the eastern counties were able to prosecute and promulgate the civil laws and institutions during the war. The "Rebel scourge" was so prevalent that most local officials just gave up and went home to protect what little they had, let alone the citizens of the county and their property. The post-war governor declared a blanket amnesty for all such activities in the interest of keeping the courts from becoming choked with suits which could probably never be resolved. While the governor was correct regarding the huge volume of such actions potentially choking the courts, some of these suits should have been prosecuted. As John David Preston stated to me a while back, one of the greatest disservices done to the people of the mountains was not prosecuting genuine war-criminals for their crimes, regardless of the side on which they served.

Robert M. Baker,

Dispatcher, Post 11 (London), Kentucky State Police,
Signals Officer, Dept. of Ky., SUVCW,
Historian for the 39th Kentucky Mounted Infantry, U.S. Volunteers.