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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 2016)
4 Wednesday, June 29, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Commentary... Rebelling against the rebellion By Jim Cornelius News Editor The Blue and the Gray. North versus South. The American Civil War is usually portrayed as a regional conflict pitting two halves of the country against each other in a bloody conflict over slavery and states’ rights. The Southern states seceded from the Union to protect and assert their sovereignty, led by a slave-owning class determined to protect the cot- ton economy. They formed the Confederate States of America and defied the gov- ernment of Abraham Lincoln, who sought to forcibly keep the states in the Union. That’s the picture most people have of the Civil War or the War Between the States. Less well-known is the fact that several regions in the South essentially seceded from the Confederacy. “Free State of Jones,” now playing at Sisters Movie House, depicts one such rebel- lion against the rebellion, in Jones County, Mississippi. It was led by a fierce, shotgun- wielding backwoods badass named Newton Knight (played by Matthew McConaughey). As a story in Smithsonian Magazine recounts, “He was a nightmarish opponent in a backwoods wrestling match, and one of the great unsung guerrilla fighters in American history. So many men tried so hard to kill him that perhaps his most remarkable achieve- ment was to reach old age.” Knight had nine chil- dren by his wife, Serena, before they separated — then five more with his grandfa- ther’s former slave, Rachel, who lived afterward as his common-law wife. Knight acknowledged his mixed-race children. The whole family, including the ex-wife, lived in separate houses on his 160- acre farm in south-central Mississippi. Knight wasn’t exactly a typical figure, but the Jones County uprising he led against state and Confederate authori- ties was not an exceptional occurrence. Mountainous and/or backwoods regions of many Confederate states — where King Cotton never held sway — saw high levels of Unionist sentiment. East Tennessee, northern Arkansas, northern Alabama, the Hill Country of Texas, were hot- beds of Unionism that pro- vided soldiers and scouts for the U.S. army and sometimes flared into small-scale but very nasty guerrilla warfare. And, of course, West Virginia broke off from the Old Dominion and became a new state that exists today. (There were also pockets of strong pro-Confederate sentiment in Northern territo- ries; another tale for another time.) Few of the Southern backwoods hill-country folk owned slaves and they saw no profit in fighting on behalf of low-country slaveown- ers in a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” Some who did enlist to fight for the Confederacy quickly became disillusioned and deserted. When the Confederacy introduced conscription and started requisitioning food- stuffs and livestock, well, that hardened sentiment considerably. Confederate authorities were hard-pressed to deal with flaring insurrections deep within their own terri- tory. Their resources were stretched trying to stave off the invasion of Union armies. Some counties and regions became virtual no-go zones. And, as is the nature with guerrilla warfare, conflict often degenerated into ban- ditry, with rival armed gangs sparring with each other and looting and robbing non-com- batant civilians. There was nothing gentle- manly about this aspect of the Civil War. The anti-Confed- erate insurrections across the South were written out of history in the after- math of the war and Reconstruction. The Lost Cause myth had no room for such tales. The modern Civil Rights move- ment of the 1960s created tremendous photo publiC domain anxiety and backlash across the South and Newton knight. hardened racial atti- tudes even in areas that had and they don’t think it’s a big defied the Old South’s stand. deal. That’s a huge change. Ironically, the Confederate Some of the young guys are Battle Flag became a frequent really identifying with Newt sight in many of the areas that now, as a symbol of Jones rejected the Confederacy in County pride. It doesn’t hurt that he was such a badass.” the 1860s. The unusual racial politics For decades, Newton Knight was regarded with of the Jones County insur- scorn in his own home county rection — along with the — because he was a race- vividly charismatic qualities mixer. But that is swiftly of its leader — make “Free State of Jones” a compelling changing. The Smithsonian Magazine subject for a movie for our quotes Jones County native time. 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