William C. Thompson

On February 16th 1865 William C. THOMPSON was killed by Confederate guerrillas. Curley Bill THOMPSON, was a member of The Home Guard during the Civil War. The Home Guard was comprised of older men who stayed near home to protect the women and children from marauding Confederate soldiers. Both Union and Confederate soldiers roamed that area of Kentucky and both sides preyed on those whose sympathies they opposed.

Curley Bill fought against the Confederate guerrillas, who found him in his living room. He had married Martha HOUSTON after his first wife's death and they had two small children. He had one of these children (America THOMPSON) on his lap when he looked out the window and saw the guerrillas coming. He tried to get away by going through the back, but they caught up and shot him. They then went up and shot him two or three more times, killed his horses and burned his barn. One of the guerrillas, who had gone the other way around the house, got in the line of fire and he was killed too. They say, they took a good's box, broke the dead guerrilla's arms and legs and wadded him in there and he's buried by the side of the road, up there near Ward's store.

Curley Bill's great granddaughter, Beatrice THOMPSON Smith recalled, with shivers, that when she and her friend's walked to school they always walked on the other side of the road when they passed the "guerrilla's grave". That was in the early 1900s; I wonder if the Green County, Kentucky kids of today still have that phobia?