the washington post, and john stauffer, solicitation professor at harvard recounted insurrection against the confederacy by residents of jones county mississippi and 1865. it was led by a local farmer and come close of his white and black neighbors. harvard book store in cambridge massachusetts hosts this event,

it's about an hour. >> [applause] >> thank you all for coming. we thought we would talk for about 45 minutes then open up for questions and we want to do three things in our presentation, one is to give a brief background about how our boat into been in and summarize some of of the key themes hopefully was your appetite is of that you will want to buy in and read it in case you haven't. and then third, tell you why we think our story is a man began both as a story and as a war story. and we will kind of rift on a tether so will both be talking for hours. so how the book came into being -- about 34 years -- about three or four years ago alice has to be a consultant for gary ross, he is a filmmaker and worked on

pleasant bell and the screenplay for this story. the this is the story of southern union is m., one that has been around in various with incursions along time. i had been doing a lot of work on interracial alliances and reform and was a very interested in how this function in the south. i have a wonderful time doing some research for a hammock and then he decided after he wrote the screenplay that he wanted a history of the book to authenticate the movie which is not yet in production and bush should be in the not too distant future in gary new sally who is a brilliant writer, award winning journalist but also a historian. sally's put before this was on the carlisle indian school and so he helped us out and we hit

it off well, really well and spend some 1a fall research emergence in mississippi and other places. and so over the course of a few years we've looked up in the book together. that is how innocence it came to being. it is a story of mount these yeoman farmers in subsistence in jones county mississippi in the civil war. it was the poorest county in this day, some background is that mississippi we say is in the marrow of the deep south. it was over all the wealthiest in the country and, in fact, sanchez, mississippi boasted more millionaires than any other city in the country including manhattan. the average field handan was worth it in today's dollars

75,000, that gives you a sense, and a big planner would own hundreds of slaves. it was huge business. it was at the time of the big business, slavery was a far bigger business than the real world or any other industry and end at seven years are hoping to mx parts of central and south america and were totally redundant to stem more control of their institution and it given how well the of the planners were in mississippi jones county was poor because it was in swampland. it is what is known as the pinewoods area so it is horrible for plantations. these were subsistence farmers who basically did not grow -- they grew very little cotton, they have a sense of dignity and out working with their own hands which was totally and now, to

planners and they were opposed to the planter class and the secession which was in a sense some unusual purity could think of the two-thirds of the light southerners who were not slaves owning. most of whom in doris slavery and the reason for that is the same reason that a lot of minimum-wage workers embraced the capitalist system to then. they believe in some point they will become millionaires or they will become -- be able to participate in this system. the subsistent farmers of jones county understood that from a class prospective they were totally opposed that of the planter class and there was also the religious sensibility in jones county was one of primitive baptism.

baptists until they 1820 were explicitly anti slavery because of the theological reasons, and the south have essentially south -- silence those sentiments but we have evidence that the primitive and baathist in jones county end in the newton knight congregational were envious on theological grounds anti slavery so the protagonists of the tail, newton knight, was opposed to slavery on economic grounds, on religious or moral grounds on the eve of a cent civil war, in fact, that farmers of jones county overwhelmingly opposed secession and voted against -- the motive for an anti secession delicate. i will let sally pick up the story from here. [laughter] >> well, my role here is as a narrative writer. at only written one book that could be considered history before this hearing doubleday our publisher brought me on

board i think as a storyteller and the reason why is i think that's history as an abstraction can be hard to grapple with. many home in on the individual in take to the point of the story then it began to experience something like the civil war more personally and so the person that we hung on in this book is a farmer named newton knight who was a subsistence farmer who did not own slaves. his parents did not own slaves interestingly enough which was odd because his grandfather jackie night was one of the few large slave owners in jones county. a county with the land wasn't conducive to planting a lot of cotton and yet jackie was inspiring to the planter class and so were a lot of his children except for his oldest son albert refused to on slaves who was the only person in jackie's will not to be left slaves when in the old man died. and albert night in his wife and

their family were subsistence farmers who actually believe in telling the earth with their own hands and making a living themselves. they believe in the private of the beating themselves with their own two hands. their son, newton knight come also believed that and he did not on slaves and not only that, but develop distinct anti slavery sentiments by the time drafted into the confederate army. so the story of newton knight really on a personal level is illustrative of the fact that the confederacy was not a great romantic noble endeavor in which everyone in the south was ignited by. by dixie. there were class divisions, there were racial divisions and religious divisions and so the soren at this man really is a way to sort of explore those wedges in the confederacy. and newton knight, his story really begins with the outbreak of the civil war when he is

essentially a drafted into a confederate army that he doesn't believe in, this on to serve and here he tells the people who draft him, the local offices that he doesn't want to hide but he will serve as a medic if he hasted. and 70 goes off to war and basically a walk straight into one of the iran as early battles, the battle of corinth. in the battle and cavalier rebel general named earl van doren decided to launch a full frontal assault at over, union forces that were dug into really deepen jasmines with very large battlements basis. the big batteries, these earthen forts with. down on top of them overlooking this immense field. the rebels as they tended to do early in the world launch this massive charge, across open fields, hundreds and hundreds of yards of really open fields with nothing between them and the guns but some chopped september to slow them down.

and as they cross the field newton knight company is in the teeth of one of the worst areas of the charge. now they turn right and an area called a battery run a net, they sweep into court and but then there are fairly chamblee but so exhausted and so hungry and so been up by this horrible charge and the teeth of the guns that they actually stopped and some of the source of victories for something to eat. eventually of a union drives them back out of. , leaving the field strewn with hundreds of dead. newton knight spends the first sign of that battle collecting corpses and wounded men from the fields of attending to them overnight. the next morning earl van dorn tries it again. there's another massive charge. even worse than the first one. at this point the rebels are terribly with a absolutely decimated so they finally retreated. they have a long agonizing march

back to safety. right after the battle of career and the comparison passes something called the 20 negro lot. it was basically in law that declared that any planter who owns 20 or more slaves was exempt from military service the 20 negro law was passed by the confederacy for a couple of reasons which john will help explain because i will handle the ball back to him for the personal support reason was because planters wanted to stay home and look and oversee their plantations and their slaves. there was a deep fear of slave insurrection in the deep south and so one line of thinking was of the masses were in remaining at home thinking prevent this from happening. secondly, richmond wanted to evade service. when the 20 negro law is passed newton knight and his friend a jasper collins basically have a conversation in which they agree this law makes it a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. as the phrase went. so jasper collins is another

subsistence former church reformer who is the term, and jasper throws down his gone and says that's it for me, i'm going home, not fighting in this war. he's older than it newton knight, he looked up to jasper collins and very quickly was in a matter of days newton knight throws out his gun to he is down, he is finished and desserts. several men from jones county a flat desert after the battle of corinth and a return to their county where among other things their wives are beginning to start because there are no mental health of the plow the fields or 10 the livestock and in the meantime the confederacy has also enacted a policy called tax in kind. tax in time it meant the confederacy could come to your hargitay cure worse is, your corn, the cotton at airfields or tenth of having that your wife had stayed up all night working on an ad balloon, then literally in some cases of the officers would come in and taken i think of the cloth out of the loom

that you been waiting for your kids to wear. so there was intense resentment, not just by men who were conscripted into death army but by their wives and children back home in counties like jones. and so when you read about an obsession, the confederacy and read in your text of a vat tax in kind or about conscription that this is what maine on the ground. newton knight is the way into this story because the specificity of his experiences what makes the history of the confederacy really living and is through that, that we began to understand of the confederacy was. it wasn't gone with the wind and. and it wasn't dixie. it wasn't lines of men into full -- gray uniforms marching off singing. it wasn't on the ground experience, it was a wretched miserable experience with the resentment and it was as john is about his plan resembled much

more of a totalitarian state that in democracy. it was a profoundly undemocratic say in a profoundly undemocratic episode in our nation's history and so one of the things you'll think about as you read our book and read about a man named newton knight is about the nature of patriotism, the nays have to send in terms of a the formation of a patriot and how sometimes descends can be the highest form of patriotism. one of the things that happens when newton knight goes home is he and his friends are talking and and they come to an understanding that they have voted against secession when it came to a possible love in jones county. newton knight and his friends had gone to the polls and voted against secession. the representative and then goes to jackson mississippi for the secession convention and ignores the popular vote back, and those for secession for which he was burned in effigy and a series of mississippi in jones county.

the sun not only after the battle of koran when the newton knight and jasper collins desert, they realize it's a rich man's war but they realize they never had a say in the first place. the and that they really are living in a profoundly undemocratic society at that point. they talk a lot very explicitly newton knight and his friends very explicitly about the constitution and about the allegiance to the union and then become conscious deserters by unionists. that there are a lot of men who deserted the confederacy because they did want to fight for it was 30 or uncomfortable or dangerous, but there was then a seventh level of resistance to the one that begins to form that newton knight represents and that is unionism and not only that but anti slavery. and with that i will turn it back over to john. >> buy 1863 to declare oneself a union as was by definition in mississippi anti slavery because

emancipation proclamation was meeting that all slaves of rebel masters would be forever free. and so when newton knight and his subsistence farmer buddies affirmed the constitution and pledge allegiance to the united states, that means have that they aren't for emancipation. there are for abolition as some. and that is what they do appear if they see themselves as loyalists. in fact, the confederates referred to them as the tories or loyalists. and they are an enormous threat to the confederacy because the confederacy is not only trying to fend off the union but they are trying to fend off the enemies from within his of his big, blacks and unionists. and you to end his wide comments are able to survive in large

part for two reasons. one is that where there are from, jones county, the pine woods, they use his wish to summarize is that it is swampland that there is a combination of cypress swamps and pine forests and at the time of these pious jews are about 6 feet in diameter and there are moments during the day for the sun that barely shines through. it is a different role the end that they learn how to fight swab warfare essentially pare down and the other reason why they were able to survive aside from the location of the geography of the swamp is in the receive data from blacks, from slaves who were also seeking to resist the confederacy. the confederacy recruited, they drafted in any able-bodied a man and then they pressed slaves to do the dirty work for them and when the newton knight and his buddies go back to jones county

de forma common cause with as african-americans weekends they share this hatred against the confederacy, the voters is of trying to either kill them or impress them into service. and suddenly facing a common enemy that threatens them is in a poor reason for at this interracial line. we have good evidence that newton knight, his life was saved by a former slaves on a number of locations and, in fact, reach all night, a slave of newtons grandfather explicitly save his life indications in the new tin firms essentially calls in love with her some point to end the civil war. and by the end of the war they have a child together, this is very, throughout the south and what is unique is for a white

man to treat a black man or woman as a nickel. which essentially newton knight does. he raises his children from rachel as his own. in fact, after the newton knight -- civil war and reconstruction and after an seven living essentially in black communities. he is a radical republican and speaking to uphold the new quality of the law of the constitutional amendment. in fact, he helps to build an integrated school house that was burned down which then constitutes according to an excellent a final break with wife and then with newton knight we don't want to give away all the story he becomes known as a white negro bay has of his decision to live in this black community and is buried in a black cemetery. in many respects he is the john brown of the south pier he is more radical than number abolitionist.

i have gone ahead of myself but levee kind of backtracking and say hello been more about newton knight southern unionism. s not only the server by the unionists he is a fugitive from justice and technically a deserter and certainly unionists is the capital crime. and, in fact, the confederacy is so worried about newton knight and his comrades and his alliances with blacks and they sent into crack regiments to try to snuff them out and nevada that confederate high command issued a summary execution. if you see them kill them. get them out of the web. there are able to hand out the confederates essentially because they know how to try to swap more fair and the comparison makes the mistake of trying to fight newton knight and his comrades in the gallery. you can do a lot of things with calgary and the confederacy had a great calvary of riding suave

warfare with calvary does not make a lot of sense which is what the confederacy for the most part tried to do. at the end of the war with appomattox from the perspective of newton knight, it highlights the degree to which white southerners or confederates, the surrender in appomattox but the delay down their arms. they return home and then continues to engage in a terrorist war and they shoot blacks, the issue republicans, they shoot unionists, and then they can do whatever they can to prefer the old order. and, in fact, newton knight, his life was in greater jeopardy during and after reconstruction and during the civil war. because of during the war he received aid from sherman's army when sherman came through on the campaign and there was good evidence that he received honors

and rashes and artillery from sherman. increasingly over the years of a construction there are fewer federal troops like the former confederates our returns to power. newton knight forms a close alliance with it a bird names, the great a union officer who was a radical republican in mississippi and the teams, in fact, appoints a ninth as a captain of a black militia to try to enforce the laws of the united states try that reconstruction and after. there are a number of bassanese -- assassination attempts on newton knight during reconstruction and after in fact, they were amazed that he was able to live as long as he did. he doesn't die until 1922 at age of 91. that is one of the most stunning

fax of his story. >> you just give away the ending. [laughter] >> so why don't we end just on kind of a formal aspect of the discussion by saying a little bit by doing two things -- we can talk a little bit about how we were able to piece together the story, and why we think this story is significant. newton knight his story was first written and published in the war itself. anything about it, one of the worst fears of confederates is not so much a slave insurrection by slave allies themselves with whites. that was the worst nightmare. that is why john brown to this day remains this haunting specter. for many whites. and at one of the people he does that hit the ball to is a mississippian, jim kelly, he told me when we were down a for

a reason we're talking about john brown and that resemblances of it john brown with newton knight. jim kelly said my close association with john brown is one my granddaddy said it that i will be john brown rather than god damned. for most white southerners john brown continues to be satanic, demonic because he aligned himself with blacks and try to make war with the south to leverage the slaves which in this sense is what newton knight does. so he is first written about as a threat to the confederacy during the war but one of the interesting aspects of the civil war was a lot of i think most americans don't appreciate and even some scholars who we think they're wrong is that in many respects the south winds of war and by the end of reconstruction of the south is to a large degree retain the old order of white supremacy, of black.

that is not to say the confederacy -- the union army wins, the south windsor the war in terms of preserving the old order. and certainly this how the winds of the war of how this whole war gets talked. 580 niece white southerners are control of how the civil war gets taught him by the 18 as the war is being taught that it is not about slavery, it is not about the slave secessionists to want to control and expand slavery, it is a matter to these larger economic forces, the agrarian south end of a combative industrial north. the aggressive combat of industrial north. it was about why seven years simply seeking to protect their land. is a war of northern aggression and, the northerners were really aggressive ones. whereas when the war broke out

every republican understood in the seven years or committing treason and taking up against the u.s. but by 18 the general history of the war was larger economic forces and no one was marlee to blame. that compares with these noble hero of people and so it is cast like essentially national super ball and it too many respects this is how the war continues to get circulated which is why for example of the competitive lankans still be flown heroically and with private and places of the south because of this long tradition of the store been told in a way that has nothing to do with slavery or little to do slavery. in given that the first history

was in the '80s and it has some as a common theme of this order murder and basically your common desperado. on principle desperado who's simply is wanting to protect himself, once a man for and against neighbors and friends to line his own pockets that he is not at all principled. in that basic version with a few exceptions with his son publishes essentially a privately. a story of a newton knight as a robin hood figure in that there is very good evidence that he was a kind of robin hood kerogen that he sought to protect his community of subsistence farmers. he distributed grain and there are a number of instances where he rated confederates supply depots and then distributed to the tune it to the subsistence

farmers but his son completed norris is interracial relations and romance and at that story of newton knight use it as an unprincipled desperado or as a common theme of war as a villain really persist through the entire 20th century. the only scholarly book prior to arliss that begins to get newton knight and right is a social history by victoria by them in 2001 called the free state of jones. she gets a lot of tax wrong in her book and she completely downplays and the degree to which newton knight was a fervent anti slavery union gas during the war and reconstruction he applies for union pension in on five occasions.

the radical republicans have an air of an mississippi and senator supports newton knight pensions. he hired newton knight to be the captain of a black militia company. newton knight needs it to rachel nine to, essentially his black common-law wife, at the end of reconstruction just as federal troops are leaving the south, he deeds per 160 acres of land. at that very moment, to make sure that she is protected. and there are numerous other instances of clear anti slavery unionism on the part of newton knight that we were able to uncover through a somewhat lucky and in some cases very diligent research. >> my turn? i think to wrap up and then open it for questions i think that if we hope you take anything away from this book which you will

hopefully rain it is the nature of the individual interning events. newton knight and his company, the jones county scouts is with a man themselves, fought off the confederate army for essentially to a half to three years in the swamps. parts of to crack regiments are dispatched to deal of the men in the swamps. they organize themselves, both of fealty to the union and then began to launch military operations but to gillooly after vicksburg the jones county discounts become incredibly powerful because more than more are really leading the army and not just hiding out as deserters in the swamps which has become by then a kind of super highway for refugees of all sorts. .. to the

confederate army. between the union cavalry who come over from places like vicksburg, men like newtonite. there were other unionists in the southern part of mississippi. there were a strong body of unionists in smith county, one county over from jones county where a man named hawkins owned a mill where he literally handmade -- his patriotism was

so strong he hand-made an american flag and ran it up over top the mill. when that hand drawn american flag went up the local unionists knew to meet at the hawkins mill. and he kept a picture of abraham lincoln on his mantel and told everybody what a great and good man our president was. this is in southern mississippi in the heart of wartime. when these crack regiments are dispatched by -- they arrest hawkins and they tear this handmade american flag from the body of hawkins' wife who had hidden it under a dress and a report is filed about raiding the mill. these same troops come in to jones county next where a huge fire-fight erupts in which the confederates get the worst of it for a time. every time the confederacy tried

to deal with the men they would melt in the swamps and a confederate soldier would write we wiped them out, they're gone and within a month he would be launching another raid against a storehouse or a confederate installation. they freed local slaves. they killed basically -- they killed or ran off every single confederate officer in jones county. there's -- it's been said joins county formally seceded from the confederacy by the end of the war. there's no evidence that they were officially seceding from the confederacy. newtonite was asked about that after the war. he said we never voted for secession in the first place. so there was no point in seceding from the confederacy. in our minds we never left the union. that was his response. but in effect jones county had seceded from the -- the men from jones county had launch just ahead successful insurrection against the confederacy and won and the county remain out of

confederate control and everything south of that that towards mobile and the coast until the end of the war. >> in those, returning confederate veterans at the end of the war were so embarrassed by the southern unionism of jones county that they successfully petitioned the state to change the name of the county from jones to davis, i.e. jeff davis, and the county seat from ellisville to leesburg when after unionists regained control during military construction they turned it back. >> newtonite had become the enforcer that when yankee troops come in to occupy ellisville mississippi and the seat of smith county, all these local counties, the units that come in are black units that have been sent over from vicksburg. they're led by white officers,

many of whom were boston abolitionists at least some of whom anson hemingway, ernest hemingway's grandfather served in one of those units. at any rate, men like that, white officers commanding black units moved into jones county as occupying a victorious union forces took over these parts of mississippi and newtonite -- there are letters in the national archives in washington, d.c. asking him to carry out orders. one of the first things that he's asked to do -- a union captain writes a note to him saying there is a local slave child that's being held by his former owner who refuses to release him. the local blacks tell us that you can free that child. and it would be a great service to us if you would go over and free this child from the recalcitrant slave owner who won't return him to his parents and liberate him. newtonite gets the child back. he goes over and frees the child, returns him to his

parents. local blacks told union officers newtonite this is man who can help us. he carries out orders from officers to carry food to destitute citizens in all the surrounding counties. by the end of the war he's very much rewarded as the man to see. if you're in any sort of trouble in jones county. so he was not only a patriot but he was -- to this day he's regarded as a man who helped the destitute. he's viewed very quietly by some families in the area as a real hero and as a gentle soul in addition to being a fear some one. he was a lethal combatant. before the war, the fiercest backwoods fighter in the neighborhood and during the war, he and his men came up with this technique where they would actually overload their shotguns with more pellets. they would stuff as many pellets

as they could into their shotguns and so they knew how to double load these shotguns and they would fire one barrel after another and honestly if you were a confederate unit coming after these men in the swamps the shot just filled the air. from these shotguns these overpacked shotguns. so, you know, he was a fascinating character not without his flaws. first of all, he had two families. one white and one black. he had countless children. we're still counting the number of children that he had by both his wife -- his white wife serena and his black wife children. >> and some of the intermarried. the genealogy in jones county there are a multitude of knights living in jones county some of whom we interviewed with the book and some of whom had never talked about their family history before because it was a source of shame. the interracial makeup of their family was a source of deep deep shame in the family. one woman that we talked to literally had never spoken to

anybody about it except for her own parents. and very little at that. she was great at helping us understand the nature of this family and the history of this family. but there are still white knights and there are still black knights as they call them the knight negroes in jones county. and then there are branches of the family that have scattered across the country. one of the things that happened particularly from the 1920s onward is that some knights got out of mississippi, went off to places like texas and california because they wanted to escape the family history. and so they went off to other states. one branch of the family changed their name to muckknight and passed as white. some of them got in touch with us. we sort of tracked some of them down. they are still -- there are still parts of the knight family that are learning of their history and discovering new things every day about their

family history. the oral tradition about nuite knight he was a hero to the black side of the family. he was a great provider and great father and great grandfather, who posed with one of his mixed race grandsons with a photograph which is reproduced in the book which john is a photographic historian in addition to other things and he can explain just how extraordinary that was for a white man in mississippi to pose with a black child for a picture. so i'll sort of wrap it up with that and just say that we hope that the story of one man's war helps eliminate the great war. >> in a number of ways and one that sally pointed out, a story that you hope will have a compelling story to the degree the easiest way to summarize the confederacy is that it's a totalitarian state. secondly, how and why this white

southerner can forge such intimate bonds especially in massachusetts. a lot of people in massachusetts think, you know, if you're in mississippi in the civil war period or even now, for some people mississippians are ignorant, they're backward and they're incurably racist. this is a story that highlights the degree to which here's some backwoods yeoman farmers who are just as abolitionists in their own way as john brown or wendell phillips or william lloyd garrison. and third, hopefully, this story will highlight for people the way in which the traditional prevailing stories of the civil war have continued to be. [applause]

>> so if you do have questions we just ask that you use the mic in the center aisle here. thank you. >> yes, what part of the state is graphically jones county located? >> what part is jones county located, southeastern mississippi, so it's actually very -- the nearest big city is mobile, alabama. and so it's southeastern. that's where the piney woods runs through. there's one county south of jones which is the southern-most southern county and then jones so it's very south, very east. whereas the wealthy planter counties were primarily along

the mississippi river because the rich -- known as the black belt, the reason the soil was so rich is because of ther]c spillr from the mississippi river, which is why natchez was the wealthiest city in the county so the planters would live in natchez and they would have these just gorgeous plantations and homes that spread out along the mississippi. >> jones county was close enough to the coastal field in katrina breezes -- they didn't get knocked down or anything. but the farmers newton knight farms, sweet potatoes and corn and melons and so on and so forth. and he would take his produce by wagon to mobile. mobile was the market town for jones county and it was about a three to four-day trip over land by buck board wagon. they would camp along the way. they would raise livestock and hogs and turkeys and they would drive the turkeys before them down the road and the turkeys

woodland in the trees and roost in the trees and the younger boys -- when newton was a younger boy, part of his job was to get the turkeys and drive them down the road. one of the things that the dirt farmers learned how to do in making these market trips to places like mobile obama was they learned every backward path and why they were so effective in evading confederates they knew the topography so well. they knew how to float things down the pearl river. some of these rivers that run through jones county and the surrounding counties become very narrow and yet they were very adroit at negotiating these streams and floating things down them and finding little islands to hide in, you know, all sorts of caves and things. they really knew the landscape much better than the confederate forces that were being sent in after them. >> i thought this would be

appropriate especially considering my question. let me give you a bit of a back-story before i ask my question. i was in the first chapter of sons of union veterans to be created in the state of alabama that was just created within the last 10 years. as far as i know still the only chapter in the state of alabama. and one thing that i had noticed during the process of getting the chapter created was there's still a lot of sort of hostility and resistance to the idea of southern unionism and to the idea that there were southerners who served in the union army who willingly agreed to serve against the confederacy and such. so much so that we actually encountered resistance from time to time. we tried to talk to the public about the creation of a chapter. >> that comes as no surprise to

us. >> if you haven't already read the book that focuses on, you know, unionism in alabama. it's less a story about a specific or a couple of individuals but it highlights the degree to which as we said if the bottom third of mississippi is controlled by unionists by the end of the war, the top quarter to third of alabama is in union's control and if you look at every single confederate state, large swaths of those confederate states are controlled by unionists. it's one of the most overlooked aspects of the civil war. the degree -- >> the first alabama union cavalry still has unions -- >> good for them. good for them. >> there was actually one fellow who -- he passed away before we were able to create the chapter but he was the actual son of a first alabama cavalry u.s. man

soldier to be in it. i don't want to monopolizes the microphone. >> southern unionists had a hard time getting a pension because many didn't believe a unionist could have existed in dixie and there's a book called worse than slaughter that examines the toll of unionism and desertion on the confederate army. a lot of people have looked at desertion. desertion as a topic has been studied. and appraises how many men from mississippi and texas how many men from arkansas -- what they don't do is examine unionism and antislavery unionism specifically as a motive for some of that desertion. and as i say, not only are they not graduated for it but deep skepticism still exists that these sorts of men could have had moral conviction. one of the things that we've been amazed by is the level of

resistance that an idea that newton knight could have been morally motivated. he couldn't have had moral motivation. he must have been a deserter who wanted to go home and grow corn he couldn't have possibly have a real reason for behaving the way he did. >> there's still a lot of resistance. something that i had asked questions about -- i'm actually aspiring historian myself. i had asked a lot of questions in some of the local history groups in alabama about why there were some things that were commemorated with historian markers and one of the things that were not? this ultimately gets to my question -- when i was asking questions about why, for example, prominent huntsvillians who had been notorious abolitionists in the eyes of the local people like james bernie who lived there a long time who had two sons who were born there who ended up being generals in the civil war there were no markers or anything for him anywhere. this was a man who was a candidate for president of the

united states on the liberty party ticket twice. >> right, right. >> that's exactly right. >> my question and this is something i dealt with in some of my own research do you still encounter -- did you encounter as much resistance talking about unionism -- >> yes. we are from some critics. here's the interesting -- this is why narrative is important and this is why we chose narrative and john acceptedóéf partly on board as his honest to god his understudy. >> no. >> he's the world class historian. but if you plot the dots, if you plot the points of newton knight's life, his parents did not own slaves despite his grandfather owned slaves he himself did not own slaves. he was conscripted -- he voted against secession. he's conscripted into the army and then deserts. he founds a homemade militia of

fights the confederacy. after the war he's the first man union armies go to free local black children who are held against their will by former slaves owners and he accepts a commission from the most reviled man in mississippi history -- >> to this day. >> medal of honor winner for the union called the gala head of the union. one of the most decorated soldiers in the army and also becomes a governor and senator from mississippi. he's one of the only white men they can turn to in the state for aid in fighting off the kkk and recalcitrant slave owners. you're going to tell me newton knight had no convictions? >> and we've had -- >> and yet that's what we encounter from critics who say, proves newton knight -- you go too far. we're told we go too far. >> so far the most negative

review is from a southern mississippi civil war local historian who accused us of saying that, you know, we don't have the evidence of newton knight was principled. now, this critic -- the person who wrote the review, his hero is jefferson davis. he's characterizing his own writing jefferson davis as noble in adversity. and the evidence that we marshall in is really unconvertible. i mean, there's so much over the period of the civil war through reconstruction, the end of reconstruction. and i think your point -- it highlights the degree to which ideologically the south won the civil war. they controlled how the story got told and militarily they won the civil war in the sense that white southerners were able to preserve black on freedom in varying degrees until the so-called second reconstruction

on civil rights. lynching became a defining aspect of southern culture. from 1880s through -- >> and here's the most fascinating thing. if you're newton knight and you fought this war, what year is robert lowry elected governor of mississippi? 1880, okay. in 1880 a man named robert lowry is elected governor of mississippi and in his inaugural address he talks about how the founding fathers never envisioned, you know, the equality of the races. robert lowry is the officer the confederate colonel who was dispatched to chase newton knight through the swamps, who spent two months basically chasing newton knight through the swamps through jones county and smith county. this is a man who after the war is forced to surrender and take a loyalty oath to the union and who newton knight views is the

beaten confederacy. he was his arch enemy and he hung a number of his men -- summarily hung them in trees without trial. robert lowry in 1880 is elected governor of mississippi. if you're newton knight in 1880, living with rachel knight, the black woman that you're raising a family with, for all intents and purposes on the ground, you've lost the war.a[ç because your arch enemy of the confederacy is the governor of the state. you've lost the war. >> it's a pity that the populists could not draw upon the memory of jones county in terms of interracial collaboration. but i was wondering about the internal warfare within like kentucky and missouri to determine whether they would secede or remain in the union.

was that due to antislavery unionism? >> good question. the border states of kentucky and missouri in particular, why did they choose to remain in the union? i mean, i should first say that the guerilla warfare in missouri was extraordinary. there were large numbers of missourians who formed confederate companies. jesse james, who became a cult hero is still a cult hero for many people. i mean, he's a confederate thug in missouri who is defending the confederacy. the main reason that missouri stays in the union -- or one reason -- there are a number of reasons. one is that the politicians are -- understand that they are better protected by staying in the union. slavery is not as quite as

central an institution as kentucky as it is in the state of mississippi but it was conflicted and, in fact, a scholar who we see eye-to-eye with in many respects, william frelen most recent wonderful book on the road to disunion officially argues that had secession been by referendum or popular vote throughout the south, southern states wouldn't have seceded. it started as a domino effect. in fact, the only southern state that had a popular vote or referendum is texas and that was much later and there was already a snowball for secession than the popular vote that did vote for him. in missouri there were a number of staunch antislavery people in the missouri but a lot of proslavery people in missouri. and it was in many respects

missouri experienced worse guerilla warfare than, say, southern mississippi. in fact, michael feldman has a terrific book on the guerilla warfare in missouri. in missouri it starts in the 1850s and during the debate over slavery in kansas. kentucky not quite as much guerilla warfare but that's a keynote of kentucky where you have within the state confederates and unionists fighting each other. >> by the way, jones county -- newton knight was not the only unionist in jones county. the men who served with him in the swamps, 53 other men made their way to new orleans to enlist in the union army in new orleans. 53. i mean, jones county was little. it wasn't huge. 53 men. that's significant. that right there tells you that

there were unionist sentiment in the county. >> thank you very much. [inaudible] [applause] [inaudible conversations] sally jenkins is a journalist for "the washington post." she's the author of numerous books including the real americans and it's not about the bike cowritten with lance armstrong. john stauffer is the chair and a professor in history in harvard. among his numerous books, the black hearts of men which was the cowinner of the 2002 frederick douglass prize and runner-up for the lincoln prize. harvard bookstore in cambridge, massachusetts, hosted this event. for more information visit harvard.com.

>> we're at bookexpo america in new york city. the booth for regnery publishing who's based in washington, d.c. with marjorie ross. what do you have coming out this season? >> well, we're actually very excited about several of our books for summer and fall. and, of course, it's a good time to be a conservative publisher in washington, d.c., because there's a lot to talk about. our first book i'll tell you about is a book by repeat bestselling author for regularry michelle mall kin. it's called the culture of corruption. it's the first anti-obama book coming from any publisher and we think it's going to be very, very big. michelle has done a real investigative reporter's job of looking at president obama, his

team, who he's nominated, who he's brought in to work with him, who's come from the corrupt city of chicago and what they're up to. and i think -- the story really that she's going to tell is that unlike the promise of change and maybe some reform in washington, government is up to the same old tricks and you're not going to like what you hear when you hear about what's happening in the halls of government. >> another book coming out this fall by denise de souza. ñ anoth from regnery. this was a counter-argument to all the anti-god books that had come out a while ago. there was an argument there was no rational basis for believing in god and dinesh said quite the opposite there's a very rational

logical reason for believing in god. this book takes up where that book left off. life after death talks about why it makes perfect sense, logical sense to believe in heaven. the after-life miracles and things that are not particularly consistent with the atheist point of view. and he takes a very logical rational approach to proving why it makes more sense to believe in the after-life than to dismiss it as a fairytale. >> finally, mark furman the murder business. >> another regnery bestselling author. mark furman did his very first book with us about 12 years ago. of course, that was the book that broke open the o.j. simpson murder case and he was the lead police detective there. he's come back to regnery with a very, very interesting book. he's, of course, best known as an analyst of crime.