The State of Jones (48 page)

Iphicrates was the Athenian general who in 390 BCE liberated Corinth from the siege by the Spartan king Agesilaus. He thus abandoned longheld loyalties to Sparta. He later assisted Sparta, and eventually turned traitor again, and this time tarnished his fame, when he sided with his father-in-law in a battle against his hometown of Athens. Newton would not have known all of these details.

In a later classical siege of Corinth, the Achaean general Diaeus controlled an army “swelled with emancipated slaves.” After establishing his headquarters in Corinth in 147 BCE, Mummius led a successful siege on Corinth. In 146 BCE Diaeus abandoned Corinth to Mummius and fled home to Megalopolis, where he killed his wife to prevent her from being captured by enemies and then killed himself with poison.

See William Smith, ed.,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
, vol. 1 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1867), quotation from p. 997; William Smith, ed.,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
, vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1867), pp. 616-18, 1119-120; Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds.,
The Oxford Classical Dictionary
, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 765, 1405.

On Byron being read in the Confederacy, see Kate Cuming,
Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse
, ed. Richard Barksdale Harwell (1866; reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), p. 14; O’Brien, ed.,
All Clever Men
, p. 69; Michael O’Brien,
Rethinking the South: Essays in Intellectual History
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998), pp. 28, 51, 70, 106-9.

39
fed the Confederacy:
Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, pp.

56-57; McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, p. 184. 39
rest of the war:
Frost, “The South’s Strangest Army Revealed by Chief.”

39
without leave:
Thomas J. Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, p. 60.

40
“did more to injure the Southern case”:
Platt and Womack to Pettus, November 7, 1862, and Saffold to Pettus, November 3, 1862, quoted from John K. Bettersworth,
Confederate Mississippi: The People and Policies of a Cotton State in Wartime
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1943), p. 191.

40
“for o tha care”:
Eric Foner, “The South’s Inner Civil War,”
American Heritage
40:2 (March 1989), online at
http://www.americanheritage.com/
articles/magazine/ah/1989/2/1989_2_46.shtml
.

40
“so far above him”:
B. D. Graves, address to the Hebron Community, June 17, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss.

40
forced back:
Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, pp. 56-58.

40
as AWOL:
Bettersworth,
Confederate Mississippi
, pp. 198, 202-3, 218-19. Bettersworth notes that “when the troops evacuated Corinth, 3,792 men were absent without leave; and by the time the army reached Tupelo, 2,919 more were missing.” During the remainder of the year, hundreds more desertions occurred (pp. 202-3).

41
soldiers home:
Bettersworth,
Confederate Mississippi
, pp. 198, 202-3, 218-19.

41
“even houses”:
Ibid., pp. 82, 110-11, 199-200, quotation from p. 82.

41
“This was too much for my father”:
Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, pp. 21, 60.

41
“when I got ready”:
Frost, “The South’s Strangest Army Revealed by Chief”; Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, pp. 43, 57. In his crisis, Newton resembled Huck Finn, who had to decide between remaining loyal to his slave-owning society, which continually spurned him, or becoming an outlaw by helping his friend Jim find freedom. And like Huck, Newton chose to remain true to himself and follow his heart.

41
into the woods:
War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, Compiled Service Records, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, microfilm (M269), NARA.

41
“duty here at home”:
Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, p. 57.

42
“knocks and signs and passwords:
George P. Rawick,
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography
, supplement, series 1, vol. 6,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 1 (Westport, London: Greenwood Press, 1977), pp. 10-19.

43
“and polygamous”:
Faulkner as quoted in
Plain Folk of the South Revisited
, Samuel Hyde Jr., ed. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), p. 74.

44
“I am ruined, I am ruined”:
Rawick,
The American Slave
, supplement, series 1, vol. 10,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 5, interview with Martha Wheeler, former slave belonging to Jackie Knight, pp. 2262-71. Wheeler described the unusual layout of the Knight plantation; normally slave cabins were in the back, not the front.

44
“ole master’s” tobacco:
Ibid.

44
on a spread with ten slaves:
U.S. Federal Census, Jones County, 1860; U.S. Federal Slave Schedule, Jones and Covington Counties, 1860; Rawick,
The American Slave
, vol. 10,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 5, interview with Martha Wheeler, pp. 2262-71.

44
underlying the secession crisis:
Jackie may also have grieved over secession because his father died establishing the nation. According to family oral tradition, Jackie’s father fought in the Revolutionary War. However, Knight genealogists have been unable to trace his identity. Jones County archivist and genealogist Ken Welch believes he may indeed have died
prematurely—perhaps killed in that war—given that the Knights tended to have extremely large families, yet Jackie Knight and his brothers James and Lewis were their mother’s only children, suggesting that her husband died young.

45
last will and testament:
According to family descendant and genealogist Earle W. Knight, Albert Knight was opposed to the Confederacy; see Victoria E. Bynum’s notes on interviews for
The Free State of Jones
, Mississippi Oral History Project, McCain Library and Archives, University of Southern Mississippi. Jackie Knight’s will is in Probate Court Record 3, June 1860-1865, Covington County, copy in possession of the authors. A typescript is reprinted in Winnie Knight Thomas, Earle W. Knight, Lavada Knight Dykes, and Martha Kaye Dykes Lowery,
The Family of John “Jackie” Knight and Keziah Davis Knight
(Magee, Miss: n.p., 1985), pp. 11-12, 327-33. For further discussion of whether the Albert Knight family were antislavery, see Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 11.

45
fathers for their sins:
A strain of dissidence seemed to run among the younger, poorer members of the Knight family. Fourteen of Jackie’s grandchildren would ally themselves with Newton in opposing the Confederacy. Victoria E. Bynum in
The Free State of Jones
identifies those relatives who were allies in a useful genealogical chart, p. 192.

45
cotton and slaves:
The description of Jackie Knight’s arrival in Jones County is from Thomas, et al.,
The Family of John “Jackie” Knight and Keziah Davis Knight
, pp. 11-12. Jackie Knight’s cotton and rice production is from Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 63.

46
buy more slaves:
According to Martha Wheeler, Jackie Knight was a slave trader as well as planter. Rawick,
The American Slave
, vol. 10,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 5, interview with Martha Wheeler, pp. 2262-71. A Knight descendant, Earle W. Knight, also believed that Jackie did some slave trading. See Bynum, notes on interviews with Earle Knight, Mississippi Oral History Project, University of Southern Mississippi.

46
“fields of mimic snow”:
Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, pp. 4-5.

46
“Bought him by weight”:
Eugene R. Dattel, “Cotton in a Global Economy: Mississippi (1800-1860),” from Mississippi History Now, an online publication of the Mississippi Historical Society, October 2006,
http://mshistory.K12.ms.us/articles/161/cotton-in-a-global-economy-mississippi-1800-1860;
Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, pp. 4-5; quotation is from B. D. Graves, address to the Hebron Community, June 17, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss. On converting antebellum money into 2008 currency, we multiply by a factor of 75. We arrive at this figure by comparing a skilled laborer’s wage of roughly $500 in the 1840s to an average annual family income in 2000 of around $37,500: 37,500 / 500 = 75. See U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part I
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, 1995), p. 224;
idem, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1994: The National Data Book
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, 1995), pp. 487-88. See also John Stauffer,
The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 322, n. 84. We are grateful to the economist of slavery Stanley Engerman for helping with these figures.

46
“sell for that”:
Bettersworth:
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, pp. 4-5.

47
“Have they any Negroes?”:
According to Knight family slave Martha Wheeler, Jackie gave two slaves to each child when they married. See Rawick,
The American Slave
, vol. 10,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 5, interview with Martha Wheeler, pp. 2262-71. Quotation is from B. D. Graves, address to the Hebron Community, June 17, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss.

47
his children could read and write:
Jackie Knight’s possessions were detailed in the records of his estate auction, Probate Court Records for Covington County, 1860-1865. His home was also described by Martha Wheeler in Rawick,
The American Slave
, vol. 10,
Mississippi Narratives
, part 5, pp. 2262-71. In addition to his two cases of books, Jackie had a stable of eight horses, an expensive buggy, several teams of oxen, and a vast array of bed and table linens, counterpanes, and crockery.

47
personal estate worth $8,900:
U.S. Federal Slave Schedules, Jones and Covington Counties, 1840, 1850, 1860; Jackie Knight’s will is in Probate Court Record 3, June 1860-1865, Covington County, copy in possession of the authors.

48
All of her children received some education:
Rawick,
The American Slave
, vol. 10, interview with Martha Wheeler, pp. 2262-71; Bynum, notes on interviews with Earle W. Knight, Mississippi Oral History Project, University of Southern Mississippi. On the 1850 U.S. Federal Census for Jones County, Albert and Mason listed themselves as literate and all of their children above the age of ten as receiving schooling in the past year. Knight family genealogist Ken Welch has an interesting conjecture on Mason’s unusual name: perhaps she was named for famous antislavery patriot George Mason.

48
“too poor to raise a fuss on”:
Quotations from James Street,
Look Away!: A Dixie Notebook
(1936; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977), pp. 43, 53, 54, and B. L. Moss, essay on “Jones County’s Agricultural and Industrial Development,” Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss. Piney Woods is also called the “Long Leaf Pine Belt” and “Pine Barrens.” See Herbert Weaver,
Mississippi Farmers, 1850-1860
(Nashville: The Vanderbilt University Press, 1945), pp. 10, 20.

49
“forests are all my own”:
Street,
Look Away!
, p. 55.

49
Most families owned none at all:
U.S. Federal Census for Jones County, 1860, and U.S. Federal Slave Schedules, 1860; Leverett,
The Legend of
the Free State of Jones
, pp. 11, 35. Most of the Knight family slaves were listed in the Covington County census rather than Jones, including the twenty-two held by Jackie. Still, he was among the largest slaveholders in an area in which it was rare to own slaves at all. 49
“settled gloom”:
J. F. H. Claiborne, “A Trip Through the Piney Woods,”
Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society
, vol. 9, 1906.

49
wild game for the table:
B. D. Graves, address to the Hebron Community, June 17, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss.

50
a single horse:
Samuel C. Hyde Jr.,
Plain Folk of the South Revisited
(Baton Rouge, London: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), p. 207; Weaver,
Mississippi Farmers
, pp. 87, 88, 96; Horace Greeley,
What I Know of Farming …
(New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1870), p. 87; Gorn, “‘Gouge and Bite,’” pp. 18-43.

50
children could crowd around it:
John Melton Knight, address to the Rainey Community Meeting, June 10, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss. J. M. Knight was Newton’s cousin and contemporary. He was the son of Jesse Davis Knight.

50
oars and a pull-rope:
U.S. Federal Census, Jones County, 1840, 1850; B. D. Graves, address to the Hebron Community, June 17, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss.

51
bushels of them that year:
Addie West, “A Brief History of Jones County,” unpublished Works Progress Administration collection for Jones County, record group 60, vol. 315, MDAH; J. M. Knight, address to the Rainey Community Meeting, June 10, 1926, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Miss. Statistics on livestock are from Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 35.