"Tinker Dave" Beaty

"Tinker Dave" Beaty. Union Partisan of the Cumberlands. David “Tinker Dave” Beaty, a native of Fentress County, was the best-known Union partisan in the Upper Cumberland mountains. In 1862, he formed a group called Beaty's Company of Independent Tennessee Scouts, also variously called partisans, guerillas, and bushwhackers. Such irregular forces were common on both sides during the war, especially in areas where opinion was divided between Unionists and secessionists. Like Beaty's company, they protected the property of civilians on their own side while looting and killing those on the opposing side, and harassed enemy troops and supply lines., Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside supported Beaty after the Federals took control of East Tennessee in 1863. Beaty wrote that Burnside "wanted me to go out in the mountain forks and bushwhack the Rebels and keep the roads open.” Beaty's men subsequently fought several small engagements against the Confederates, including with partisan Champ Ferguson, who was tried and executed for war crimes in October 1865. Ferguson told a newspaper reporter, “Well, there are meaner men than Tinker Dave. He fought me bravely and gave me some heavy licks, but I always gave him as good as he sent. ... We both tried to get each other during the war, but we always proved too smart for each other.” Confederate Gen. Basil W. Duke later wrote of Beaty and Ferguson that the former “possessed a cunning and subtlety with the other, Champ Ferguson in great measure, lacked.” Beaty died in 1876 and is buried in Lynn Cemetery in Fentress County.