by Thelma Taylor

March 7, 1865 - Louisville Journal

"You've been an awful girt," the editor of the Louisville Ky, Journal wrote to Sue Mundy during the Civil War. "Our Journal will bring you to justice and thus be to you not only a newspaper but a noose-paper."

Sue Mundy was taken to General John Hunt Morgan at the age of 17. Morgan was struck with the beauty and heroic bearing of Miss Mundy and consented to enroll her with the Confederate Army, She was blamed for many of the guerrilla raids in the Kentucky area. For three years the state shuddered and communities were kept in an uproar of sleepless terror.

Editor George Pierce of the Journal said some people considered Sue the wife of the devil. "If this is so," Pierce declared, "she will boil him on his own gridiron, butter him with his own brimstone and turn him with his own pitchfork,"

Pierce received a letter from Sue Mundy threatening to assassinate him, Soon afterwards on a Sunday morning in Much, 1865, news of Sue Mundy's capture in a barn in Breckinridge County was reported. The 20 year old bandit asked to surrender as a war prisoner.

It was revealed that Sue Mundy was born Marcellus Jerome Clark, the son of the postmaster at Franklin, Ky. He had blonde hair and was girlish looking. He posed as a girl in many of his terrorizing raids. He confessed to taking many fives, but declared that every act of violence was done as a loyal Confederate soldier. He said that he had no malice against anyone and loved everybody.

Clark's last words were, "I am a regular Confederate soldier and have served in the Confederate Army for four years. I fought under General Buckner at Fort Donelson and I belonged to General Morgan's command when I entered the army. I have assisted and taken many prisoners, and have always treated them kindly.

"I was wounded at Cynthiana (Ky.) and cut off from, my command. I have been in Kentucky ever since. I could prove that I am a regular Confederate soldier, and I hope in and die for the Confederate cause."

Clark was sentenced to be hanged. The execution took place at the old fair grounds in Louisville. Ten to 15,000 people attended the execution. A hand played the Death March as a carriage drove slowly a half mile from the prison to the scaffold. When the body was cut down the crowd surged around. Some tried to cut off a button. Others snatched at the cord to get a piece as a memento.