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Legend of the Free State of Jones

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It is good to see the late Dr. Leverett's classic work on the Free State of Jones back in print. In 1984, the Legend of the Free State of Jones effectively refuted the old myth that Jones County, known far and wide for its community insurrection against the Confederacy, had actually seceded from the Confederacy, drawing up documents to that effect and declaring itself an independent "republic."

With meticulous attention to documented facts, historian Leverett recreates the time frame of events that occurred in Jones County between 1861 and 1865, while at the same time critiquing the works of journalists, folklorists, moviemakers, and yes, even historians, who over the years have perpetuated this myth of secession. Leverett shows that even so prestigious a figure as Albert Bushnell Hart of Harvard endorsed such nonsense in 1891.

As the author of my own work on the Free State of Jones, I engaged in a mutually-respectful and fruitful exchange of letters with Dr. Leverett before his untimely death in 1999. We never did agree on whether Capt. Newt Knight was an outlaw or a genuine Unionist (I took the latter position), but we did agree that this important story should be told with respect for a complex past. In ending the shameful institution of slavery, the Civil War constituted an important revolution. At the same time, Leverett shows, the war generated an inner civil war in Jones County, Mississippi (and in many other regions of the South), that resulted in mayhem, murder, and divisions that can be traced to the present.

Once more Jones County has been discovered by fame-seeking journalists, unscrupulous historians and Hollywood greed. So, it's fortuitous that University Press of Mississippi has decided to re-release this seminal book on Jones County and Newton Knight. As a Jones Countian, I am indebted to Dr. Leverett for courageously wresting a true history of the Free State of Jones from the swamps of racial politics, Lost Cause ideology and Hollywood sensationalism. His rigorous efforts to stay within the boundaries of documentation rather than giving in to speculation opened the door for a new generation of historians like Dr. Victoria Bynum (The Free State of Jones, Mississippi's Longest Civil War) to build on his solid foundation.

I hope Leverett's admirable example of sticking to the facts and avoiding sensational conjecture in regard to this fascinating piece of local history will give conscience to those who have recently succumbed to the temptation of twisting the truth for profit and fame.

Dr. Leverett was the first to publish a scholarly book documenting the history of Jones County, Mississippi before and during the American Civil War. In Legend of the Free State of Jones, Dr. Leverett showed conclusively that Jones County never seceded from the Confederacy and, moreover, that its residents remained loyal to the Confederacy during and after the Civil War. It is true, Leverett explains, that most Jones Countians opposed the political stance of Southern secession from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. The reason? ". . . Jones County was not part of the Old South of manor houses, river boats, privileged gentry and gracious living. On the other hand, the lives of the people in Jones County were probably far more typical of those of the ordinary Southerner of the times than were those of the plantation artistocrats. And, of course, it was the latter and not the former that went with the winds of the Civil War." Legend at pp. 45-46.

Once invasion by the North seemed imminent, however, residents overwhelmingly aligned themselves with the Confederacy in opposition to the North.

Emblematic of the nuanced views of Jones County residents was Amos McLemore, a school teacher, Methodist-Episcopal minister and merchant whose Southern roots reached back into history nearly two hundred years. Like most of his fellow Jones Countians, McLemore opposed Southern secession from the Union in the months preceding the Civil War -- this despite the fact that his business partner supported Southern secession. Nevertheless when war became a foregone conclusion, McLemore raised and commanded a company in the Confederate army, the Rosin Heels.

Major McLemore was later murdered by Confederate deserter Newt Knight, the purported leader of the alleged "Republic of Jones" of legend. McLemore had been temporarily dispatched back to Jones County from the front in order to round up deserters. Having learned of McLemore's mission, Knight shot McLemore in the back as McLemore and others sat around fireplace at the home of State Representative Amos Deason in Ellisville. Leverett's book presents evidence that, contrary to legend, Knight was in fact little more than an opportunist and criminal who likely volunteered for the Confederacy, then later deserted.

At the time Rudy Leverett completed research on his "Legend of the Free State of Jones" in the early 1980s, there was no factual account of the events that occurred in Civil War Jones County, Mississippi. To be sure, the story of an area in the Deep South rebelling against Confederate authority had quickly produced its own mythology published in contemporary Southern Unionist newspapers. These tall-tales were recycled decades later, apparently with straight faces, in some historical publications. Two descendants of renegade leader Newt Knight added to the mix. Newt's son Tom Knight did so in a self-published book he sold along with peanuts on the streets of Laurel, Mississippi in the 1930s. Then in 1951 family cousin Ethel Knight published her "Echo of the Black Horn." Tom Knight depicted his father as a resourceful Robin Hood of the Piney Woods whereas Ethel portrayed him as cunning and nefarious. Although interesting accounts, neither was intended as a scholarly history.

Thus it was left to Leverett to attempt to untangle fact from folklore. In doing so, his account was necessarily revisionist. As his first task, he set about to trace the mythological accounts in their northern and southern variants. Anyone interested in how rumor can become sanctified as fact will enjoy this first section of the book. And, lest we believe that modern historiography holds itself to higher standards of accuracy, a recent book on Civil War Jones County once again trumpets it as the story of "The small Southern county that seceded from the Confederacy." Newt Knight himself disputed such a claim, but there continue to be those who feel facts should not interfere with a good story. Leverett was much more scrupulous in acknowledging that a group of deserters and their kinsmen rebelled against Confederate authority and troops were sent in to quash the resistance. But he took pains to point out that, in the greater scheme of things, this was a relatively brief episode with a modest casualty count.

Those looking for a brief, factual account of military and political events that occurred in Civil War Jones County need look no further than "Legend of the Free State of Jones." One minor flaw is that references are on the scanty side. Another is that Leverett stopped at the "when and where" questions without grappling with "why." Those wishing to delve further into how slavery, limited as it was, divided Piney Woods families should read Victoria Bynum's "Free State of Jones" (2000). Bynum's book also contains a fascinating account of the post-Civil War lives of the children born to Newt Knight and his mulatto mistress, Rachel. Leverett's book can be read in an evening, while Bynum's will require a few days. Choose either or both accordingly.

One final note: Rudy Leverett was maliciously characterized as a "neo-Confederate" in a book on Jones County that touts its Harvard pedigree. The fact is that Leverett left his home state of Mississippi in early adulthood owing to his strong opposition to then existing segregation policies. He was later active in the civil rights movement in his adopted home of Boise, Idaho. The same author who made this spiteful swipe at Leverett's posthumous reputation found no problem in citing his book over 50 times. Caveat emptor.

There are now several interesting books about the "secession" of Jones County, Mississippi from the Confederacy during the Civil War. Sally Jenkins' and John Stauffer's book, The State of Jones, made a splash a while back, and an earlier book by Victoria Bynum, The Free State of Jones, is at least partly the basis for a movie set to come out next year.

Both books, and this one as well, deal with Jones County's complicated participation in the Civil War, including anti-secessionism, deserters, resistance, active engagement against Confederate forces, and alleged attempts to ally with Union forces. The Jenkins/Stauffer and Bynum books also address in some detail the roles of slavery and racial relations and interactions in Jones County as part of the larger story.

This book was written earlier than the other two, and it reads as a more scholarly investigation of the "legend" of the "Republic of Jones" or "The Free State of Jones." The author concludes that, while there was no real secession per se, and no actual local government set up in opposition to the Confederacy, there are some facts backing up the legend. The facts were just exaggerated in the interest of a more dramatic and even humorous story.

But Leverett seems equally motivated to investigate and dispel positive accounts of Netwon Knight, a central figure in the legend, as any sort of politically motivated resistor and champion of anti-secessionism. Both the later books paint a much more sympathetic, if mixed, portrait of Knight, depicting him as a politically motivated Unionist. Leverett's book, on the other hand, reads at times like a prosecutor's case against Knight, portraying him as a common thief, for whom any real political motivations were opportunistic inventions either by him or by his chroniclers.

A prosecutor's case should be listened to, but it shouldn't be the only thing we listen to, and it should be listened to with a critical ear. In particular, I question Leverett's distinction between "political convictions" on one hand and "concerns of economic survival" on the other. His contention is that Knight's activities were motivated by economic hardship and not political conviction. I'm not so sure that the two are so sharply separate -- one thing that Leverett does not give much room to in his account is the burden placed on Southern farmers, particularly in as poor a region as Jones County, by the Confederate government to supply its troops. Economic resistance and political resistance to that burden would be difficult to distinguish -- food is politics. When Knight and his band, for example, raided the Confederate supply depot at Paulding and took away some quantity of corn, they may well have been acting out of both economic hardship and political conviction.

The Jenkins/Stauffer and the Bynum books both present dimensions of the story not present in Leverett's account. Bynum in particular takes on sociological tones in her depiction of race relations in Jones County at the time, and Jenkins/Stauffer tell a much more detailed story of Newton Knight's own life, personality, his marriage, and his relationship with the slave Rachel Knight (and his "second family" with her). I have to admit that, as Jenkins/Stauffer remark in their commentary on sources, I find it odd that so central a feature of Knight's life as his relationship with Rachel and his other purported interactions with slaves of the area went completely without comment in Leverett's book. The fact that slavery was scarce in Jones County (as Leverett says, no more than three percent of Jones County residents owned any slaves) does not account for that absence, particularly given Leverett's intention to assess Knight's motivations.