{"id":3870,"date":"2026-05-01T20:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3870"},"modified":"2026-05-01T09:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:40:02","slug":"worse-than-savages-the-bloody-legacy-of-kirks-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3870","title":{"rendered":"Worse than Savages: The Bloody Legacy of Kirk&#8217;s Raiders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zGIQ1f6DnX0?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>George Washington Kirk was a carpenter from Greene County, Tennessee.<\/p>\n<p>He was also a feared and hated Union soldier\/bushwhacker during the Civil War, operating in the mountains along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.\u00a0 Kirk and his band of Unionists known as Kirk&#8217;s Raiders were hailed as heroes by some and denounced as nothing but savages by others.<\/p>\n<p>From the audacious raid on Camp Vance and the brutal Battle of the Bloody Chucky at Red Banks in what\u2019s now Erwin, to his post-war role in the Kirk-Holden War against the Ku Klux Klan, George Kirk\u2019s story is another one of the Stories of Appalachia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you like our stories, we\u2019d appreciate it if you\u2019d give us a like and a comment; be sure to subscribe, too.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7121\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3870-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71814072\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71814072\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71814072\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71814072\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3870-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/71814072\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Washington Kirk was a carpenter from Greene County, Tennessee. He was also a feared and hated Union soldier\/bushwhacker during the Civil War, operating in the mountains along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.\u00a0 Kirk and his band of Unionists known as Kirk&#8217;s Raiders were hailed as heroes by some and denounced as nothing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[50,8],"tags":[1685,91,1671,1672,1683,1667,1670,769,1674,1664,1682,1675,1678,1668,1680,1681,1684,1673,622,1679,1669,1676,1665,788,1666,1677],"class_list":["post-3870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reconstruction","category-the-civil-war","tag-3rd-north-carolina-mounted-infantry","tag-appalachia","tag-battle-of-red-banks","tag-bloody-chucky","tag-boone","tag-bushwhacker","tag-camp-vance","tag-civil-war","tag-erwin","tag-george-washington-kirk","tag-greene-county","tag-john-schofield","tag-kirk-holden-war","tag-kirks-raiders","tag-kkk","tag-malinda-blalock","tag-murphy","tag-nolichucky","tag-north-carolina","tag-reconstruction","tag-spencer-rifle","tag-stonemans-raid","tag-tennessee","tag-thomas-legion","tag-unionist","tag-w-w-holden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-10q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3872,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3870\/revisions\/3872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}