{"id":3921,"date":"2026-07-03T20:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2026-07-01T08:56:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:56:01","slug":"the-devil-in-the-mountains-the-story-of-vincent-clawhammer-witcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3921","title":{"rendered":"The Devil in the Mountains- The Story of Vincent &#8220;Clawhammer&#8221; Witcher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vincent \u201cClawhammer\u201d Witcher became one of the most feared Confederate guerrilla leaders along the Virginia\/Kentucky border in the Civil War.\u00a0 As the leader of what was called \u201cWitcher\u2019s Boys, he operated from the Ohio River in what\u2019s now West Virginia down into northeast Tennessee, bringing brutal violence to both friend and foe alike.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This week we tell his story, including notorious incidents in Lee County, Virginia and Unicoi County, Tennessee, that earned him the name \u201cThe Devil in the Mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast on your favorite podcast app so you don&#8217;t miss any of our stories.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_2542\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3921-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72770489\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72770489\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72770489\/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\/72770489\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3921-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72770489\/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>Vincent \u201cClawhammer\u201d Witcher became one of the most feared Confederate guerrilla leaders along the Virginia\/Kentucky border in the Civil War.\u00a0 As the leader of what was called \u201cWitcher\u2019s Boys, he operated from the Ohio River in what\u2019s now West Virginia down into northeast Tennessee, bringing brutal violence to both friend and foe alike.\u00a0 This week [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[1812,1608,104,1413,1278,1587,1807,1809,1810,1334,1818,1817,1815,1584,1814,1067,1808,1816,1819,1806,1813,1811],"class_list":["post-3921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-civil-war","tag-34th-virginia-cavalry-battalion","tag-appalachian-civil-war-history","tag-appalachian-history","tag-appalachian-history-podcast","tag-civil-war-appalachia","tag-civil-war-atrocities","tag-clawhammer-witcher","tag-confederate-bushwhackers","tag-confederate-guerrillas","tag-east-tennessee-civil-war","tag-forgotten-civil-war-stories","tag-guerrilla-warfare-civil-war","tag-limestone-cove-massacre","tag-mountain-warfare","tag-southwest-virginia-history","tag-stories-of-appalachia","tag-the-devil-in-the-mountains","tag-unicoi-county-tennessee-history","tag-union-and-confederate-conflict","tag-vincent-addison-witcher","tag-virginia-civil-war-history","tag-witchers-boys"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-11f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","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=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3922,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions\/3922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}