Mike Joghs

From The Great Outdoor Fight

Mike Joghs (1840-1909) was the 1866 Fight Champion.

Joghs was a French-Canadian trader and trapper who had traveled extensively throughout Canada and the western United States, often living by his skill and wits. According to a later interview, he saw the Fight as his chance for a "big break" and as a last personal challenge before settling down. As a foreigner with no ties to the North or South, he did not join either of the factions in what came to be known as "Civil War 2." Joghs was not above smearing his clothes with dirt and dust to confuse attempts to identify him with either the Northern or Southern factions. Joghs avoided the violent battles of Day 1, and subsequently picked off scattered survivors on his way to a Day 3 victory.

Joghs' most dramatic takedown was of Colonel Johnny Lincoln the Third, leader of the "Johnnys" during the conflict. After strangling the last prominent Union leader to death, Lincoln began howling in victory with the famous "rebel yell." According to contemporary accounts, Lincoln's yell was cut short as Joghs came charging out of the mist and punched him in the throat. The two fighters went tumbling down a hill, biting and clawing. Joghs stood victorious after fatally bashing Lincoln's head against a rock.

Despite winning one of the bloodiest Fights in history, Joghs' reputation as a fighter is not especially great among Fight historians. A great deal of Joghs' success was his ability to evade or safely blend in with the chaos of "Civil War 2," and he fought at a time when many Fight attendants were shopkeepers, tradesmen, etc. who entered the Fight as a means of violent political activism.

Joghs, for his part, was not particularly eager to expand or profit from his fame. He used his prize money to help set up a profitable dry goods business in Iowa, and prospered in obscurity. In the last few years of his life, he contributed essays and interviews to a number of historical publications, discussing the 1866 Fight's place in the social context of the United States during and after the Civil War.