Newton Knight (November 10, 1829 – February 16, 1922) was an American farmer, soldier, and Southern Unionist in Mississippi, best known as the leader of the Knight Company, a band of Confederate Army deserters who resisted the Confederacy during the Civil War. Local legends tell of Knight and his men forming the "Free State of Jones" in the area in and around Jones County, Mississippi, at the height of the war. The nature and extent of the Knight Company's opposition to the Confederate government is disputed among historians. After the war, Knight joined the Republican Party and served in Mississippi's Reconstruction government as a deputy U.S. Marshal.
Knight has long been a controversial figure in the region, with people divided over his motives and actions. He and his allies developed a small mixed-race community in southeastern Mississippi. His interracial marriage with Rachel Knight was considered illegal, as Mississippi had banned interracial marriages before and after the war, except for a brief period during Reconstruction.
Films about Knight have included Tap Roots (1948), directed by George Marshall, and Free State of Jones (2016), directed by Gary Ross and starring Matthew McConaughey as Knight.
Early life and education
Newton Knight was born near the Leaf River in Jones County, Mississippi, most likely in November 1837, to Albert Knight and his wife. His birth year has been recorded by his son, Tom Knight, in a biography as 1830, and his grandniece, Ethel Knight, wrote that he was born in 1829. His gravestone has his full name as "Capt. Newton Knight", born November 10, 1829, died February 16, 1922. But the 1900 census records that Knight was born in November 1837, likely from his testimony. This date is consistent with census records from other years. However, it is possible Knight gave the wrong year of his birth to the census takers to hide his family origin.Victoria Bynum, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2003).Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, p. 378 He was probably taught to read and write by his mother, as there were no public schools for yeomen children.
Newton was a grandson of John "Jackie" Knight (1773–1861), one of Jones County's largest slaveholders before the war. The first Knight forebear in America is believed to have emigrated to Yorktown from Worcestershire, England, in 1674. The family initially settled in Culpeper County, Virginia, where they lived until the 1720s when the family moved to Brunswick County, Virginia. In 1759, the family moved further south to Richmond County, North Carolina. In 1788, Knight's great-grandfather, William Knight, is understood to have moved to Dawson County, Georgia. John Jackie Knight moved to Mississippi in 1801, settling first in Union County and then moving to the area of Jasper County in 1811 to establish plantations Newton's father, Albert (1799–1862), however, neither owned slaves nor inherited any after his father's death.Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, pp. 43–45 Newton Knight never owned slaves. His son wrote that he was morally opposed to the institution due to his Primitive Baptist beliefs. In accordance with its teachings, Newton forswore alcohol, unlike his father and grandfather.James R. Kelly, Jr., "Newton Knight and the Legend of the Free State of Jones ," Mississippi History Now, April 2009. Retrieved: 2 June 2013.
Newton Knight married Serena Turner in 1858, and the two established a small farm just across the county line in southwest Jasper County, Mississippi.
Career
American Civil War Jones County elected John H. Powell, the "cooperation" (anti-secession) candidate, to represent them at Mississippi's secession convention in January 1861. Under pressure, Powell voted against secession on the first ballot but switched his vote on the second ballot, joining the majority of whites in voting to secede from the United States. In an interview many years later, Knight suggested that many voters of Jones County, not understanding how limited Powell's choices were, felt betrayed by his action.Victoria Bynum, "Telling and Retelling the Legend of the 'Free State of Jones,'" Guerillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front (University of Arkansas Press, 1999), pp. 17–29.Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, pp. 73–7
Knight joined the Confederate Army in July 1861, enlisting in the 8th Mississippi Infantry Regiment. Six months later, he was given leave to return home and tend to his ailing father. In May 1862, Knight, along with several friends and neighbors, enlisted in Company F of the 7th Mississippi Infantry Battalion. They preferred to serve together in the same company rather than with strangers.
Throughout the summer and fall of 1862, many factors increased the rate of desertions from the Confederate Army. There was a lack of food and supplies for soldiers in the aftermath of the siege of Corinth. The men of Jones County and the region were disturbed by news from home reporting the poor conditions, as their wives and children found it hard to keep up the farms. Knight was enraged when he received word that Confederate authorities had seized his family's horses for their use. However, many believe Knight's principal reason for desertion was his anger over the Confederate government's passing of the Twenty Negro Law. This act allowed large plantation owners to avoid military service if they owned 20 slaves or more. An additional family member was exempted from service for each additional 20 slaves owned by the planter. Knight had also received word that his brother-in-law, Morgan, who had become the head of the family in Knight's absence, was abusing Knight's children. Morgan's identity has since been lost, but he is thought to have been Morgan Lines, a day laborer and convicted murderer.Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, pp. 38–39, 80–82
Knight was reported absent without leave in October 1862. He later defended his desertion, arguing, "If they had a right to conscript me when I didn't want to fight the Union, I had a right to quit when I got ready." After making his way 200 miles home from deserting in the retreat following the defeat at Corinth, Knight, according to relatives, shot and killed Morgan.
In early 1863, Knight was arrested and jailed for desertion, and possibly tortured, by Confederate authorities.Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, pp. 82–83 They burned his homestead and farm as an example to others, leaving his family destitute.Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, pp. 95–99, 112–15
As the ranks of deserters swelled after the Union was victorious in the siege of Vicksburg, Confederate authorities began receiving reports that deserters in the Jones County area were looting and burning houses.Official Records of the War, 1:32, part 3, p. 580 A local quartermaster, Captain W. J. Bryant, reported that "the deserters have overrun and taken possession of the country, in many cases exiling the good and loyal citizens or shooting them in cold blood on their own door-sills."Official Records of the War, 1:32, part 3, p. 727 General Braxton Bragg dispatched Major Amos McLemore to Jones County to investigate and round up deserters and stragglers. On October 5, 1863, McLemore was shot and killed in the Ellisville home of Amos Deason; Knight is believed to have killed him.
Knight had taken to the swamp on the Leaf River to evade authorities, finding other deserters and fugitive slaves there. He and his followers organized the Knight Company on October 13, 1863. It was a band of guerrillas from Jones County and adjacent counties of Jasper, Covington, Perry and Smith, who intended to protect the families and farms from Confederate authorities, including high takings of goods for taxes. Knight was elected "captain" of the company, which included many of his relatives and neighbors.Jenkins and Stauffer, State of Jones, pp. 2–3, 137–41 The company's main hideout, known as "Devils Den," was located along the Leaf River at the Jones-Covington county line. Local women and slaves provided food and other aid to the men. Women blew cattlehorns to signal the approach of Confederate authorities to their farms.
A Rebel Soldier who recently deserted and came into our lines tells me that in the Tulahoma [Tallahoma] Swamps in Jones Co., Mississippi, there are some six hundred Deserters who are waiting for our forces to get near, so they can join them. They have deserted the Confederate cause and are determined to fight them to the last. All efforts from the Confederates to force them out have been unsuccessful and they are now offering a bounty to Deserters to join them.—James Lamon, Union scout
From late 1863 to early 1865, the Knight Company allegedly fought fourteen skirmishes with Confederate forces. One skirmish took place on December 23, 1863, at the home of Sally Parker, a Knight Company supporter, leaving one Confederate soldier dead and two badly wounded.
During this same period, Knight led a raid into Paulding, where he and his men captured five wagonloads of corn, which they distributed among the local population. The company harassed Confederate officials, with numerous tax collectors, conscript officers, and other officials being reported killed in early 1864. In March 1864, the Jones County court clerk notified the governor that guerillas had made tax collections in the county all but impossible. In 2016, a letter dated February 13, 1864, from a Union scout addressed to Maj. Gen. John M. Palmer of the Union Army was discovered by a historian working in the National Archives. It estimates the Knight Company's numbers to have been as high as 600 and confirms their intention to join up with the Union Army. The exact number is still a matter of debate, in light of an interview Knight gave after the war stating, "There was about 125 of us, never any more."Rudy H. Leverett, Legend of the Free State of Jones, p. 22
By the spring of 1864, the Confederate government in the county had been effectively overthrown. Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk wrote to Jefferson Davis on March 21, 1864, describing the conditions in Jones County. Polk stated that the band of deserters were "in open rebellion, defiant at the outset, proclaiming themselves 'Southern Yankees,' and resolved to resist by force of arms all efforts to capture them."Official Records of the War, 1:32, part 3, pp. 662–63 On March 29, 1864, Confederate Captain Wirt Thomson wrote to James Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, claiming the Knight Company had captured Ellisville and raised the U.S. flag over the courthouse in Jones County. He further reported, "The country is entirely at their mercy."Sally Jenkins, John Stauffer, The State of Jones (2009) p. 5 General William Tecumseh Sherman received a letter from a local group declaring its independence from the Confederacy. In July 1864, the Natchez Courier reported that Jones County had seceded from the Confederacy.
General Polk initially responded to the actions of the Knight Company by sending a contingent under Colonel Henry Maury into the area in February 1864. Maury reported he had cleared the area but noted the deserters had threatened to obtain "Yankee aid" and return. Shortly afterward, Polk dispatched a veteran contingent of soldiers from the 6th Mississippi Infantry Regiment led by Colonel Robert Lowry, a future governor who would later describe Knight as an "ignorant and uneducated man."Samuel Willard, "A Myth of the Confederacy," The Nation, Vol. 54, No. 1395 (March 1892), p. 227. Using bloodhounds to track down guerillas in the swamps, Lowry rounded up and executed ten members of the Knight Company, including Newton's cousins, Benjamin Franklin Knight and Sil Coleman. Newton Knight, however, evaded capture. He later stated his company had unsuccessfully attempted to break through Confederate lines to join the Union Army.
Reconstruction and later life