Marcellus Jerome Clarke

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Historical marker #562 in Simpson County notes the burial location of Marcellus Jerome Clarke--better known as “Sue Mundy”--one of Kentucky’s most infamous pro-Confederate guerrillas.

Born near Franklin, Clarke joined the Confederate army with his foster brother. Captured at Fort Donelson and imprisoned in Indiana, Clarke and his sibling escaped back to Kentucky. When his brother was captured, shot, and blinded, Clarke swore that he would never take any Union soldiers prisoner.

Clarke served in the Confederate artillery and under the command of John Hunt Morgan. After Morgan’s 1864 raid into Kentucky, Clarke, unable to evacuate the state, formed a small guerrilla band that scoured much of Kentucky. When rumors of a female guerrilla named Sue Mundy spread in the state, Clarke reportedly took the nickname to mock Unionists and societal norms. Regardless of his name, Clarke robbed citizens, burned property, and later rode with the violent guerrilla William Quantrill when Quantrill’s band raided Kentucky in early 1865.

Clarke was eventually captured. Accused of murders and other crimes, Union forces hung him in Louisville on March 15, 1865 before a crowd of thousandsHe was later buried in his native Simpson County.

The marker reads:
Marcellus Jerome Clarke enlisted in the Confederate Army, 1861, at age 17. Attached to Morgan's Cavalry in 1863. Captured on March 12, 1865, taken to Louisville, hanged three days later, court-martialed as guerrilla "Sue Mundy." His last words: "I believe in and die for the Confederate cause." In 1865 body brought here, reburied 1914 two blocks east by CSA veterans.

It was dedicated February 8, 1963.