Good Knight or Bad Knight: Part 2 | Local News

After the 2009 release of the book “The State of Jones,” by Harvard history professor John Stauffer and Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post, several other authors and columnists weighed in with sharply divergent opinions on the book and its main character, Capt. Newt Knight.

A discussion forum with the book’s authors turned into an impromptu debate at JCJC, and for several weeks, writers with knowledge of Knight filled the pages of The ReView of Jones County with columns that called him everything from a hero to a scoundrel. Knight’s role and how he should be remembered became a modern-day battle within the Civil War.

And now a major motion picture based on the book, starring Matthew McConaughey as Knight, will be made starting in 2015. With Hollywood telling the story of the Jones County man who led a rebellion against the Confederacy, it will almost certainly set off another heated round of discussion. Here are some snippets from the columns that were published in The ReView:

This is the second in a series on the varying descriptions of Newt Knight.

Playing loose with history

It was my honor to interview more than 100 folks in Jones County this past year. We talked about all sorts of touchy topics, from race to sex to murder to lynchings to rape, and yes, to Newt and Rachel Knight. And I would be the last to claim that what I ended up with was God’s own true history of Jones County. Instead, I was presented with a hundred versions of the truth. I wouldn’t call any one of those people a liar. They believed every word they told me and had documents to back it up. I’ve tried to honor them by telling their stories the way they gave them to me. I tried hard not to put one person’s story above another.

But I don’t call it history. History implies judgment. History is a promise. Lying about history can warp the minds of a generation.

It is a despicable act and  does violence to the bonds that hold a community together. If you’re guessing, then don’t call it history.

This business of buying up somebody else’s hard-lived history and repack- aging it for Hollywood consumption just galls me to no end. Faulkner said, “Facts and the truth don’t have much to do with one another.” And nowhere is that more evident than in this book. Local facts are cherry-picked to bolster a truth manufactured in California.

I would love it if this Hollywood gang could prove Newt Knight was the very first Civil Rights Freedom Rider and Rachel was the “Harriet Tubman of Jones County,” operating an underground railroad to free the slaves. It would tickle me to no end to find out that Newt was a loyal and devoted husband to a former slave, treasuring her as he would a white woman, forsaking all others. And it might make it easier to understand why we lost that war if all Confederates were incompetent racist hooligans compared to the Noble Newt. But what I want, and what Hollywood wants, is irrelevant to what history demands.

Torturing facts until they confess to what you want them to say is not history. It’s propaganda. Playing loose with someone else’s history, making it lie so that you can line your own pockets is larceny.

Simply put, bought history is bad history and distorted history is dangerous history.

— Jonathan Odell is a Laurel native who lives and writes in Minnesota now.

‘A scoundrel and a murderer’

Newton Knight was a scoundrel and a murderer — anyone who says differently, then show me the proof. In a span of more than 30 years, twice I interviewed Ethel Knight, author of “The Echo of the Black Horn,” whose father-in-law was Daniel Champenois Knight, first cousin of Newt Knight, whose book has been re-printed five times. I also talked to Jimmy Street before his death and his version is true fiction and he agreed. Ethel’s account was taken from family trunks, manuscripts and from the copyrighted works of Newt’s son, Tom.

The sale of Rachel, an unusual Mulatto with blue-green eyes who looked like a child but had two babies, one white and one black, and was pregnant with another when she was purchased by Newt’s grandfather for $500.

Her little family moved with Knight to his farm on the edge of Jasper and Jones counties, and shortly afterward came the Civil War and the secession convention.

One volunteer was a young husband and father whose name was Newton Knight. He was leaving home for what was the duration. He got his sister and brother-in-law, Martha and Morgan, to live with his wife Serena and their four children for the duration so they would not be alone.

The Southern armies were supplied by men who fought, not for money, but in defense of the Southern way of life. But the North in an effort to dissuade men who could be swayed by price, raised the offer from the South’s $50 to an even $100 in an attempt to gain Union troops from Southern territory. Then in 1863, the Union raised the bonus to $302. So price did become a factor and many honorable men from Jones and Covington counties joined a Yankee regiment in New Orleans.

Serena and Newt’s first home on the edge of Jasper County was destroyed by fire and, just before the beginning of the war, they moved back to his birthplace on Mason Creek, which was in a more thickly settled neighborhood in Jones County. This house was originally the home of Newt’s father. He had a reputation as a man of culture and refinement.

Newt wrote often to his wife and other letters reached Newt, claiming his wife and brother-in-law were having an affair. Newt confronted Morgan and ordered him out of the house, but he refused to leave. Newt announced he was over-staying his leave and Morgan threatened to tell the calvary. Newt killed his brother-in-law.

He was now a murderer and a deserter and vowed he would not go back to the Army. That is when he decided to organize his band while the sheriff at Ellisville scoured the woods in search of the fugitive. While he was hiding, he met Rachel, who was called” this wicked light” woman. She boasted her father was a noble white man. Newt bargained with her to supply him with food, which she agreed for a price. She received a pass from her aged master and soon she believed he was the man who would liberate them when the time came. One by one, his band of deserters joined him and they lived in a low-lying area between Big Creek and the Leaf River, which was just south of the present Big Creek Church.

Newt and his wife separated from time to time and she died at the home of her son and is buried in the old Union Church yard four miles from the cemetery where Newt, Rachel and her daughter Georgianna, the white child, are buried along with six unclaimed Confederates in the small cemetery.

About 50 years ago, the late Ralph Hays met a Mr. Jones who had purchased the farm on which the little cemetery is located. I saw the tombstones and, at one time, had a picture of the three graves. Newt Knight’s grave with a large marker was in the center with Rachel’s above Knight and Georgianna is at the foot. I explained in detail the location of the graves and the following week, all three headstones were stolen.

Not only did Newt Knight murder his brother-in-law but also an official of the Confederacy at the Deason Home in Ellisville. It has never been proven that Newt was the father of any of Rachel’s children. However, there is proof that one of Newt’s sons, Matthew, married Rachel’s daughter but the marriage was never recognized because she was one-eighth black.

The afternoon we visited the cemetery, Ralph and I walked through the area where Newt and his 125 men hid from authorities.

Ethel was quite a character but a good human being as she reared three children of her own and 17 other nieces and nephews orphaned by death or divorce. I enjoyed my two afternoons with her.

I have written reams about Newt Knight and have seen many of the original documents of his life. He certainly was not a folk hero but what I called him — a scoundrel and a murderer. Show me proof otherwise.

— Anne Sanders is a former managing editor for The Laurel Leader-Call

An adulterer and deserter … and black!

It is interesting to me that Newt Knight is always associated with Jones County. However, all official records that I have seen indicate that his life was anchored in Jasper County.

Jasper County marriage records show that Newton Knight married Serena Turner in that county in 1858. The official United States Federal Census for 1860 lists him, age 23, with his wife and 1-year-old son living in Jasper county. His post office was Turnersville, five miles east of Stringer.

In this census he was listed as a farmer with real estate valued at $800 and $300 of personal money. The 1870 US Federal Census listed him and his family living in Jasper County with Paulding as the post office.

This is even farther from Jones County than Turnersville.

An interesting side note on these two records is the fact that in 1860 he was married to S. K. Knight, age 23, who from all accounts would be Serena C. Knight. The 1870 census has his wife as Serena C. Knight, age 33. This all figures correctly.

The 1880 census enumerated him and his family as still living in Jasper County, but his wife is listed as Susan, age 39. It is interesting to note that in 1870 there was a Susan A. Knight, age 2, and in 1880 this Susan Knight is 12, which means there was a Knight daughter named Susan as early as 1870.

Who was this Susan Knight who was listed as his spouse in 1880? To the best of my knowledge, there was no divorce between Newt and Serena or a marriage recorded between Newt and Susan. He is still listed in Jasper County. In 1900 his residence was Beat 4, Southwest, Jasper, Mississippi.

Here is where the official records really get interesting. There seems to be a great deal of evidence that Newt wanted through interracial marriages between blacks and whites to produce a white black offspring.

With the single stroke of a pen, the census enumerator in 1900 was able to make a previously listed white Newt Knight black! Not only was he black, but his whole family was black and he lived in the midst of some 21 blacks listed on one census page alone. No wonder contradictions and conflicting stories about this man occur.

In 1900 no spouse is listed, although it is noted that he was married in 1858 and his martial status was married. In 1910 he is still listed as living in Beat 4, Jasper, Mississippi. He is now single and white.

In 1920 he is listed as living in Beat 4, Jasper, Mississippi. He is listed as white and a widow. This is interesting because Sere- na, his first wife, was still living.

To believe that he was a man of conviction who loved his family is, in my opinion, ridiculous. He was a selfish man who sought to save his life at all cost. In the end, as all of us eventually will do, Newt Knight ran out of choices and kept his appointment with the Grim Reaper we call death. He died, according to his tombstone, on Feb. 16, 1922 and is buried in the Knight family cemetery in Jasper County among his black friends.

From all accounts, he enrolled, was sworn in and served willingly for a while for the cause of the South. He was a loyal part of the South’s battle for states’ rights.

Then came a major turning point in his life where I believe a study of human nature plays an important and decisive role. Here is a young man many miles from the comforts of a wife and family. Back home there were some young men who were not as loyal as he or for various reasons exempt from military service.

I believe Newt became “homesick from home.” Most of us have known that feeling at one time or another in our lives. I do not have space in which to describe in detail what might have been raging through his mind and body at this time in his life. Most any adult can easily fill in the blanks as to what was happening.

Stated in a very simple manner, he decided it was better to return to his wife and “make love rather than war.” This idea energized a movement of youth more than a hundred years lat- er. So, Newt heads home. Whether he originally got a furlough, intended to return or not, is really irrelevant. He did not return to his appointed post of duty. He became a deserter!

This becoming a traitor caused him to become involved in treason and treachery. He quickly added conspiracy and terrorism to his rap sheet. He who once was an honorable citizen in his community finds himself increasingly a man haunted by his past and hunted by forces he once fought for.

Stressed with the lie he was now forced to live, he not only helped the enemy which he had once fought, but as human nature almost always dictates, he led others to become deserters also. There are those who justify his being a traitor and terrorist by saying that others were involved with him. Numbers do not justify such hideous acts as this.

He was an adulterer! It really doesn’t matter how prevalent or popular this may have been then or now; it is, in my opinion, a horribly bad thing. It really doesn’t matter whether his unfaithfulness was with a woman who was black, half black, red, yellow, or white. He was unfaithful to his wife and the mother of several of his children.

How such a man can be honored and glorified today is beyond my imagination except for the fact there is a moral and spiritual decline at work in our society.

— Raymond Horne is a former Leader-Call reporter and pastor who writes extensively on family histories.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7rbHAnZyrZZOWua16wqikaKaVrMBwuM6cmKVnl6S8pXnKp6CgoKRivLN5wZqbZqOenrSpwIypmKusXWd8or7TopqlnY%2BZhXOEw5qab2VpbrB0eZRqmJ9laWmzdnmWapydmmVrfXd%2BwGxloaydoQ%3D%3D