A Yankee in Mississippi - The Newton Knight Story (Article 24)

The soldiers loaded the “appropriated” foodstuffs from the farm’s storehouse along with chickens and pigs into the wagons, and rode off. Little remained for the family of the Southern soldier who had left to fight for the Confederacy. The farmer’s wife comforted her children but despaired over their future since the soldiers had taken most of their food; and she wondered whether her husband, if he were even still alive, might ever know of their plight.

This was similar to oft told stories of Union troops raiding southern farms during the Civil War. But, in this case, and numerous other instances, the soldiers were from the Confederate Army and their victims lived in and around Jones County, Mississippi.

Yes, Mississippi!

While secession fever gripped much of the South in December 1860, in every southern state there were enclaves where the residents hoped the United States would remain indivisible. In general, those areas were populated by farmers, fishermen, and/or ranchers, with few slaveholders. But these residents represented only a small minority of southern citizens and an even smaller minority in the legislatures of the states which debated whether to secede. Therefore, when the Provisional Confederate States of America was formed in February 1861, the vast majority of politicians in those states, and the people they represented, celebrated their new country.

But, not everyone!

Jones County, in southern Mississippi consisted of 700 square miles of rolling hills, flowing streams, open grasslands, and extensive forests. The area had been settled in the late 1700s by farmers who raised cattle, planted corn, beans, and potatoes and harvested timber from the dense forests; generally without the use of slave labor. Jones County and the several adjacent counties had few slaves, unlike the plantation based economy in other parts of Mississippi. Noting the mild year round climate, its natural resources, and thriving farms, one 19th century writer described it as “A land of milk and honey where a man could raise his family with the sweat of his own brow.”

Such an environment breeds an independent sort, and Jones County was no exception.

Rumblings, even threats, of secession, were heard throughout Mississippi during the prior ten years, and by 1860 had reached a crescendo; except in an area around Jones County where most families dis-avowed slavery and many were “Primitive Baptists” who neither swore nor consumed alcohol. They asked nothing of the Mississippi state government, or the U.S. government for that matter, before secession and wanted nothing to do with the new Confederate government after the state seceded on January 9, 1861. In fact, during the state debate on secession in December 1860, Jones County elected an anti-secessionist representative by a vote of 374 to 24. For the next few months, there was little acrimony between those who opposed secession in Jones County and the state officials; however, after the Civil War started in April, 1861 and the Confederate States of America announced a draft call, tension became palpable. With most of the state in a mood for war, militias began to torment, and then arrest, those who opposed the draft. The persecution was particularly harsh toward the men of Jones County and one local resident later remembered it as “a reign of terror” with many forced to join the Confederate Army or face death by military order. Another wrote of the Confederate forces, “They are constraining us to bear arms against our country.”

Newton Knight was a fourth generation farmer in Jones County, who was known to be deeply religious and who, except for voting in periodic elections, seemed to avoid involvement in either County or State politics.  When Mississippi held a “Secession Convention” in late 1860, Knight, as most men in Jones County, did not want their state to secede from the United States. They subsequently also opposed the formation of the Confederate States of America, the resulting Civil War, and the Southern government’s institution of involuntary draft calls to build and maintain military forces. Knight later said that he had “hoped to just stay out of it,” but he finally agreed, in September 1861, to join the army to save himself and his family from continuing harassment. Subsequently, Knight and a small group of friends from Jones County enlisted with the understanding that they could serve together; and they were assigned to a post near Vicksburg about 200 miles north of their home.

In May 1862, still needing more men to fight, the Confederate government issued another draft call to all of their thirteen states. However for this new draft, Southern politicians, largely slaveholders or merchants who benefited from slavery, included an exemption for anyone who owned twenty or more slaves. Although many slave holders who were eligible for the exception still voluntarily joined the army, the subsistence farmers, who made up a large part of the Confederate forces, resented the new draft waiver. The upheaval among troops already in the army and resistance by new draftees was quick. Many enlisted men simply deserted and went back home while draft resistance reached a peak.

It was not, however, only the lower ranking soldiers who opposed the exemption. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnson infuriated Jefferson Davis when he said, “This act creates a poor boys’ army and tramples on the Confederate Constitution.” And, the Governor of North Carolina was so opposed to the exemption for large slave holders that he instituted his own exemptions to the draft! He declared that all civil servants and members of state militia units were exempt and began to pad the rolls; one county named 27 commissioners and surveyors, while a Confederate General sent to round up draft dodgers found one militia unit with, “3 Generals, 4 Colonels, 10 Captains, 30 Lieutenants, and 1 Private with a misery in his bowels.”

However, the Governor of Mississippi, himself a large slave-owner, as was Jefferson Davis, supported the exemption and cooperated with the Confederate government’s effort to prevent others from escaping the draft. While Newton Knight believed the exemption “made this a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,” he remained at his post, as did most of his friends.

But circumstances soon changed and Knight decided to go home!

Despite promises he received in return for enlisting, Knight learned that a Confederate unit had raided his farm for provisions and threatened his family; so he deserted and headed for Jones County. It was a dangerous two hundred mile journey because the military had dispatched cavalry units to search for, find and return, or execute, deserters.

Knight was able to avoid detection, although he had a few close calls when he could see and hear Confederate troopers ride by. When he arrived back home, he could not believe the devastation he found throughout the area. Not only his farm, but most others had been ravaged by Confederate soldiers and, with few men available to plant new crops and care for animals, there was little hope for quickly rebuilding the food supply. But, a particular Confederate edict called tax-in-kind was the cruelest blow of all. Tax collectors were authorized to take what they deemed appropriate to provide for Confederate armies and they took food, crops (even seed corn), cattle, pigs, chickens, and farm implements. Women and children were left with little or, in some cases, no food. One Confederate General said later that “The tax-in-kind system, and the corrupt collectors, have done more to demoralize these people than the Yankee army,” and another said, “Men cannot be expected to fight for the government that permits their wives and children to starve.”

So, in Jones County, a rebellion against the Confederacy began!

In May 1863, when the Southern Army needed to reinforce Vicksburg against an expected Union assault, Knight was identified as a deserter and ordered to rejoin his old unit. He refused and was severely beaten by the soldiers who came to arrest and return him for likely execution; but somehow he escaped.

However, now the Confederate military in the area had a new and very angry enemy. After the fall of Vicksburg in July, many of the remaining Jones County soldiers just walked home and some of them joined with Knight to provide protection to local farmers against the tax-in-kind seizures. With desertions at a high level and with Knight and his men interfering with collections, Confederate forces descended on Jones County. When they approached one home, the officer in charge was killed; and most historians believe the shot was fired by Newton Knight.

The Jones County War was on!

To be clear, not all residents of Jones County agreed with Knight and there were men from the area who continued to fight, and die, for the Confederacy; and, among those loyal residents, he was seen as a deserter and a traitor. But Knight was now recognized by Confederate officials, by most of the men of Jones County, and by many from neighboring counties, as the leader of the opposition. They became known as “The Knight Company” and their guerrilla exploits against the better armed and trained Confederate cavalry were taking a toll. They even raised the American flag over county courthouses. Jefferson Davis, himself from Mississippi, was told that, “Jones County is in open rebellion and the combatants are proclaiming themselves Southern Yankees and resist by force of arms all efforts to capture them.”

Finally, Jefferson Davis had heard enough and he called for Colonel Robert Lowry, who was from an area near Jones County. Lowry had become a Confederate hero when he and his men withstood furious charges by General Sherman’s Union forces at Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia. Lowry was ordered by Davis to gain control of Jones County by “any and all means necessary,” and Lowry was successful. Using cash rewards when that worked, and torture when cash did not, he began to identify the men in Knight’s Company; then quickly caught, and summarily hanged, ten men loyal to Knight. To assure the Jones County residents got the message, Lowry left the bodies dangling for several days for all to see. While Knight was never caught, most of his men were forced to remain in hiding until the War’s end; and a few even avoided prosecution by rejoining Confederate units.

After the War, Union reconstruction policies presented Newton Knight with an opportunity to help the people of Jones County. The occupying Union Army named him a commissioner in charge of distributing food, seeds for crops, and farm animals to the nearly starving residents. However, over the next several years, as protection and enforcement by Union soldiers lessened, those in Mississippi who had supported the Confederacy again became more powerful; with some help from the Ku Klux Klan. Knight was constantly harassed by the Klan and other former Confederates, so he moved to a nearby county where his family also owned land and resumed farming. He did, however, retain his family’s homestead farm a few miles away in Jones County, but rarely returned. And, for the rest of his life, he avoided the political issues of his day.

On the other hand, Robert Lowry, a hero to many Mississippians, was twice elected Governor of their state.

During his “resistance” Knight and his men had often been provided food by a free Black woman named Rachel, whose last name we do not know. Although he was married, Knight offered Rachel, who had several “encounters with the Klan,” a place to live on his farm. Knight’s wife objected, divorced him, and left to live with her family. Despite a Mississippi law prohibiting marriage between races, Knight and Rachel were married by a minister, but without an official license, becoming common-law husband and wife. In one last act of defiance, despite a Mississippi law prohibiting Whites and Blacks from being buried in the same cemetery, Newton left directions that he be buried on his old homestead, next to Rachel, who had died earlier. He was 85 years old.

So, did Jones County secede from the Confederate States of America as several authors have claimed? Did Jones County declare war on the Confederacy? Despite newspaper headlines and articles during and following the Civil War using terms such as “The State of Jones” and “The Jones County War” there is no evidence that the County officially tried to secede from Mississippi or from the Confederacy. Union General Sherman later said that he had received a “Declaration of Independence” and a request for aid from someone in the County, but did not name the sender and took no action to reply.

Modern authors, who have explored the events in Jones County during the Civil War and in the reconstruction period which followed, arrive at differing opinions of Newton Knight. To some, he was an outlaw who capitalized on the fact that many of the men from that area were away at war. To others he was a traitor who killed Confederate soldiers and forced the military to divert troops from Vicksburg; which contributed to the Union victory and capture of that stronghold on the Mississippi River. To his admirers Knight was an idealist and loyal citizen of the United States; a simple man who reluctantly fought back against a rebel government which was committed to the preservation of slavery. A few authors even romanticize Knight as some sort of Robin Hood.

But Newton Knight defies any simplified characterization and he likely had a bit of all of those traits. He resented slave-holders and opposed secession; but was probably not a dedicated Unionist nor a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. I believe he was a fiercely independent and stubborn man who wanted the government, whether Union, Confederate, or the state of Mississippi, to just leave him alone.

Not unlike some folks today!

To read more, “The State of Jones” by Jenkins offers a historical perspective.

Contact the author at gadorris2@gmail.com