The State of Jones (51 page)

91
shot on the spot:
Blight,
A Slave No More
, p. 70. 91
“they gloried in my spunk”:
Ibid., p. 58.

91
use him for target practice:
Ibid., p. 75; Turnage made multiple unsuccessful attempts to escape to Union lines. His owner finally took him to Mobile and left him in a slave trader’s yard, where he was auctioned to the highest bidder and sold for two thousand dollars, to Collier Minge, nephew of former president William Henry Harrison. Turnage ran away yet again and this time made it to Union lines near Mobile. He served as a cook in the Union army and after the war moved to New York.

91
lice even in his beard:
Lice and lack of decent clothing were the most common complaints of Confederate soldiers other than the quality of their
food. See Bell Irvin Wiley,
The Life of Johnny Reb
, p. 250, and Commager,
The Civil War Archive
, p. 221.

92
no quick end in sight to the war:
From 1861, when the Confederate Congress authorized the issue of treasury notes, to the beginning of 1861, inflation devalued Confederate currency by a factor of 7.62. We estimate a threefold devaluation by mid-1862. See McPherson,
Ordeal by Fire
, p. 202.

93
overworked old deadhead:
Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, pp. 42, 58.

93
“stand for such conduct and not resent it”:
Knight,
The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight
, pp. 57-60.

93
less profitable food crops:
Foner, “The South’s Inner Civil War”; the prime example of planters insulating themselves economically was James Lusk Alcorn, who served eighteen months in uniform before returning to his plantation to smuggle cotton and invest in Union currency. Alcorn sacrificed in other ways, however: he would lose two sons in the war.

93
“permits their wives and children to starve”:
Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, p. 101.

94
“encouraging these things”:
War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, Compiled Service Records, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, microfilm (M269), NARA; Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 103.

94
“they’d really shoot me?”:
Weitz,
More Damning Than Slaughter
, p. 233; Bynum, Notes on Interviews with Earle Knight, Mississippi Oral History Project, University of Southern Mississippi; Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, April 13, 1864, quoted in Commager,
The Civil War Archive
, pp. 348-49.

94
to punish chattel:
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, p. 51.

95
and then a long wail:
Bettersworth,
Confederate Mississippi
, pp. 257-60; Simon Winchester,
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1999), pp. 57-61, quotation from p. 61.

95
enfeebled shuffle:
Aughey,
Tupelo
, p. 72.

95
routine part of camp life:
Commager, “A Confederate Surgeon’s Letters to His Wife,”
The Civil War Archive
, p. 347.

95
return to their units:
Weitz,
More Damning than Slaughter
, pp. 203-204; Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 104.

95
“for my services or not”:
Quoted from Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, p. 104.

96
AWOL soldiers in Newton’s unit:
Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 58.

96
reserved for the most defiant resisters:
Deposition of John Mathews, H. L. Sumrall, Allen Valentine, James Hinton, and Madison Harrington, October 14, 1870, Accompanying Papers, H. R. 1814, Newton Knight file, record group 233, box 16, NARA.

96
“he wept—he wept!”:
On treatment of those who resisted see Commager, “Punishments in the Union and Confederate Armies,”
The Civil War Archive
,
pp. 343-46; Aughey,
Tupelo
, pp. 106-112; Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 58; and McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, p. 53.

96
“uniformly” as the war went on:
Bynum, notes on interviews with Earle Knight, Mississippi Oral History Project, University of Southern Mississippi; Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, April 13, 1864, quoted in Commager,
The Civil War Archive
, pp. 348-49.

97
was then filled with earth:
Aughey,
Tupelo
, p. 112. For other firsthand accounts of Confederate executions in 1863, see Commager, “Executing Deserters,”
The Civil War Archive
, p. 346.

97
loose from the Southern cause:
War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, Compiled Service Records, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, microfilm (M269), NARA.

97
punching through the Chickasaw Bayou:
OR
, supplement, part 2, Record of Events, vol. 33 (Mississippi, Conf.), pp. 101-109; Michael Ballard,
Vicks-burg, The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi
(Chapel Hill, London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 133.

98
But the Yankees would be back:
For a fuller account of Sherman’s expedition against the bluffs, see Ballard,
Vicksburg
, pp. 132-46.

98
“hardly a friend left, except myself”:
Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, p. 251; Harry J. Maihafer,
War of Words, Lincoln and the Civil War
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s Inc., 2001), p. 91; McPherson,
Ordeal by Fire
, vol. 2, p. 337.

98
straight into the main entrenchments:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 213.

99
seems plausible that he did too:
For detailed reports and descriptions of Confederate movements, see
OR
, series 1, vol. 24/2; War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, Compiled Service Records, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, microfilm (M269), NARA. There is no absolute proof that Newton was in Vicksburg, and a case can be made that he was not. In his few statements after the war he made no reference to it. However, Newton was purposely vague on the subject of his Confederate experiences—he never talked about Corinth or his first enlistment either. It was in his best interest to minimize his rebel service as he pursued a federal pension as a Union soldier, and he tended to be purposely vague about the facts of his stay in the Confederate army. “I left it pretty soon after they got me, but I cannot remember the date,” he said. “I never served any more.” Deposition of Newton Knight in
Newton Knight et al. v. United States
, Congressional Case 8013-8464. The recollections of others are hardly more helpful. Joel E. Welborn, in his testimony in the pension case, recalled that Newton deserted in “August 1862.” This was impossible; Newton had only just been conscripted into the unit, and his record shows him present and receiving regular promotions until after Corinth. Welborn may well have meant August of 1863. Another acquaintance in the 7th Mississippi Battalion, O. C. Martin, believed Newton left from Snyder’s Bluff. But Martin served in a different company, and his knowledge of Newton’s service was sketchy at best, and at times erroneous. The most persuasive
evidence that Newton deserted before Vicksburg is a deposition provided by some of Newton’s friends in his Union pension case stating their belief that he came home in May. But they may have wanted to aid him by understating his time in rebel uniform. See the deposition of John Mathews, H. L. Sumrall, Allen Valentine, James Hinton, and Madison Harrington, October 15, 1870, Accompanying Papers, H. R. 1814, Newton Knight file, record group 233, box 16, NARA. We believe, given his arrest, the strategic conditions, the difficult landscape and number of troops around Vicks-burg, and the fact that all of his friends and relatives were there, that he too suffered through Vicksburg. The Vicksburg trauma might also explain his subsequent psychological transformation from a passive deserter to a violent anti-Confederate guerrilla.

99
“a sort of waste heap”:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 1.

100
drowned 129 of them in the river:
Ibid., p. 4.

100
“two halves together”:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, pp. 1-4; Vicksburg National Military Park,
http://www.nps.gov/archive/vick/vcmpgn/key.htm
William L. Shea and Terrence Winschel,
Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p. vii.

101
“I never could see the end clearly until now”:
Shelby Foote,
The Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 380; McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, p. 631.

101
it sounded disconsolate:
McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, p. 630.

102
he would come to the rescue:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 86; Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, p. 137.

102
backbreaking victories of the war at Vicksburg:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 308;

Foote,
The Civil War
, vol. 2, pp. 381-82.

103
“works built of timber”:
Civil War diary of George C. Burmeister, 35th Iowa, Civil War Collection, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

103
mood of the blue troops:
Foote,
The Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 381.

104
“lopped gently upon us”:
Ibid., pp. 381-82.

104
administering just 200 or so:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 330.

104
“I would say one week”:
Foote,
The Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 388.

105
a penchant for war reporting:
“Anson Hemingway, A Legacy of War Reporting,”
Military Images
, January-February 2000, online at
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/
mi_qa3905/is_/ai_n8887767
; Lydia Minturn Post,
Soldiers’ Letters from Camps, Battlefields and Prisons
(New York: Bunce and Huntington, 1865), p. 366.

105
“why don’t they order us to charge”:
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, p. 38.

105
fuses rolled down upon them:
Civil War diary of George Burmeister, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

105
There would be no more assaults:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, pp. 338-48; Foote,
The Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 385.

106
“God save him”:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 349; Civil War diary of George Burmeister, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

106
a gigantic swarming anthill:
Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 262.

106
“I feel dirty and lazy”:
Civil War diary of George Burmeister, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

107
“your beans have gone to hell”:
Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 262.

107
“dodge the shells”:
“A Woman’s Diary of the Siege of Vicksburg,”
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine
, vol. 8, May-October 1885, pp. 768-74.

107
cool the guns:
“A Woman’s Diary of the Siege of Vicksburg,” pp. 768-74; Civil War diary of George Burmeister, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

107
“$50 bills anywhere in camp”:
“A Woman’s Diary of the Siege of Vicks-burg”; Memoirs of Lewis F. Phillips, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

108
printed on strips of wallpaper:
Ballard,
Vicksburg
, pp. 349-50; “A Woman’s Diary of the Siege of Vicksburg,” pp. 768-74.

108
faux restaurant menu:
Commager,
The Civil War Archive
, pp. 449-50.

109
“jest on such fare”:
Ibid.

110
tasted like green dust:
Allan Nevins,
The War for the Union: The Organized War, 1863-1864
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), p. 72; Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, p. 134.

110
Men were so emaciated:
Victoria Bynum, notes on interviews with Earle Knight, great-grandson of Newton Knight, June 28-30, 1994, Mississippi Oral History Project, University of Southern Mississippi, vol. 698; Ballard,
Vicksburg
, p. 399.

110
“unless it can be fed”:
MANY SOLDIERS to General J. C. Pemberton, June 28, 1863,
OR
, series 1, vol. 24, part 3, pp. 982-83.

110
“their bodies are worn out”:
Hébert to Major-General Forney, July 2, 1863;
OR
, series 1, vol. 24, part 3, pp. 982-93.

111
“Sleek horses, polished arms”:
Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 221; “A Woman’s Diary of the Siege of Vicksburg,” pp. 768-74.

111
the long siege was over:
Shelby Foote,
The Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 427.

111
goods in both arms:
Grant,
Personal Memoirs
, p. 278; Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 290.

112
clothes would have to be burned:
Diary of Edward Dean, 4th Wisconsin, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.