americans to american business history. >> you've been speaking with stephen dow author of oregon indians voices from two sen churs. thank you. >> sally jenkins, journalt for "the washington post" and john stauffer chair and american civilization professor at harvard recount an insurrection from 19 six 3 to 1865. it was led by a local farmer and composed of his white and black

neighbors. harvard bookstore in cambridge, massachusetts, hosted this event. it's about an hour. >> i thought we would talk about 45 minutes and open it up for questions. want to do three things in our presentation. one is just give you a brief background about how our book came into being and summarize some of the key themes, hopefully, wet your appetit so that you'll want to buy it and read it in case you haven't and then third tell you why we think our story is significant both as a story as a civil war story. and we'll kind of rif on each other so we'll both be talking. about three or four years ago, i was asked to be a consultan for gary ross. we dedicate the book to gary

ross among two other people. he's a filmmaker. he did"seabiscuit," "dave," and "pleasantville." and this story has been around in mystic versions for many times. i've done stuff on interracial alliance and reform. and was very interested in dissent functions in the south so i had a wonderful time doing some research for him. and then he decided after he wrote the screen play that he wanted a history of the book to authenticate the movie, which is not yet in production but should be in the not too distant future. and gary knew sally, whos a brilliant writer, award-winning author and a historian.

sally's book was "the all indian school on the carlisle." and we hit it off reallyell and spent some wonderful research immersions in mississippi and other places. so over the course of a few years put -- finished putting the book together. and that's how it in a sense came into being. it's a story about these yeoman farms and subsistence farmers in jones county, mississippi, in the civil war. jones county was the poorest county in the state. the background is that mississippi we say is the marrow of the deep south. mississippi was overall the wealthiest state in the country. in fact, natchez, mississippi, boasted more millionaires than any other city in the country including manhattan. the average field hand was worth

in today's dollars $75,000. it gives you a sense -- and a big planter would own hundreds of slaves. it was huge business. it was -- at the time it was the big business. slavery was# a far bigger business than the railroader in any other industry. in fact, southerners were hoping to annex part of central america, south america and were totally reluctant to stem or control their institution. and given how wealthy the planters were in mississippi, joins county was poor because it was in a swampland. it was what's known as the piney woods area so it's horrible for plantations. these were subsistence farmers who basically didn't grow, grew very little connecticut. -- cotton. they had a sense of dignity

about working with their own hands which was totally unknown to planters and they were opposed to the planter class and the secession, which was in a sense somewhat unusual. you could think of the two-thirds of white southerners who were nonslave-owning, most of whom endorsed slavery and the reason for tha is the same reason that a lot of minimum-wage workers embrace the capitalist stem today. they believe at some point they'll become millionaires or they'll become -- they'll be able to participate in that system. the subsistence farmers in jones county from a class society their interest totally opposed the planter class and there was also the religious sensibility in jones county was one of

primitive baptism and baptists until the 1820s were explicitly antislavery because of theological reasons beginning in the 1820s, the south essentially silenced those antisvery sentiments but we have evidence primitive baptists in jones county and newtonites congregations were on theological grounds were antislavery. the newtonite was opposed to slery on economic grounds, on religious or moral grounds on the evil of the civil war. in fact, the farmers of jones county overwhelmingly opposed slavery. i'll let sally pick it up from here. >> my role is as a narrative writer. i've only written one book that could be considered history

before this. doubleday, our publisher really brought me on board, i think, as a storyteller. and the reason why is i think that history as an abstraction can be hard to grapple with. when you hone in on the individual and take the individual through the story then you begin to experience something like the civil war more personally and so the person that we honed in on this book is a farmer named newton knight who did not own slaves. his parents didn't own slaves his grandfather was one of the huge slaves owner in jones county, a county where the land wasn't conducive to planting a lot of cotton and yet jackie knight was an aspe to the planter class and so were a lot of his children except for his oldest son albert who refused to own slaves, who was the only person in jackie knight's will

not to be left slaves when the old man, jackie knight died. and they were subsistence farmers and tilling the land with their own hands and making a living on their own. they believed in the pride of feeding themselves with their own two hands. their son newton knight also believed that. he did not own slaves and not only that but developed distinct antislavery sentiments by the time he drafted into the family. the story of newton knight on a personal level is illustrative of the fact that the confederacy was not a great romanticoble endeavor in which everyone in the south was united by, you know, dixie. there were class divisions. there were racial divisions. there were religious divisions and so the story of this man really is a way to sort of explore those wedges in the confederacy. newton knight's story really

begins with the outbreak of the civil war when he's essenally drafted into a confederate army that he doesn't believe in, doesn't want to serve in. he tells the people who draft him, the local officers who draft him that he doesn't want to fightut he'll serve as a medic if he has to. and so he goes off to war and basically walks straight into one of the really horrendous early battles of thewar, the battle of the corinth, a cavalier rebel journal named earl van dorn decided to launch a full frontal assault to union forces with very large entremblement, these earthen forts with parrot guns on top of them. the rebels especially launched this massive charge, massive charge across open fields, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of yards of really open fields with nothing between them

and the guns and some chopped up some timber to slow them down. newton knight's company is in the teeth ithe worst areas of this charge. they charge right at an area called battery robinet. they sweep in corinth but they are so exhausted and so hungry and beaten up that they actually stop in some of the stores and bakeries in corinth for something to eat. eventually, the union drives them back out of corinth leaving the field strewn with hundreds of dead. newton knight spends the first night of that battle corpses and tended to them overnight. earl van dorn the rebel general tries it again. there's a massive charge even worse than the first one. at this point the rebels are terribly whipped. absolutely decimated and so they

finally retreat. they have a long agonizing march back to safety. at the battle of corinth they pass a 20 negro law. it was basicly a law that declared that any planter who owned 20 or more slaves was exempt from military service. the 20 negro law was passed by the confederacy for a couple reasons which john will help explain 'cause i'm going to hand the ball back off to him. the first and most important reason was because planters wanted to stay home and overso he their plantations and their slaves. there was a deep fear of slave insurrection in the south and so one linef thing if the masters remained at home they could prevent this from happening and secondly, rich men wanted to evade service. when the 20 negro law pass, newton knight and jasper has a conversation that it's a rich

man's war and a poor man's fight as it went. jasper collins is another poor dirt farmer is really the term. jasper collins throws down his gun. that's it for me. i'm going home. i'm not fighting in this war. he's older than newton knight, when throws his gun too. he's done. he's finished. he deserts. several me go back and their wives are beginning to starve because there are no men to help them plow the fields or tend the livestock. in the meantime, the confederacy has also enacted a policy called tax in kind. tax i kind meant that the confederacy could come to your farm, take your horses, take your hogs, take your corn, take the cotton out of your field or take the fabric that your wife had stayed up all night working on at the loom, in some cases

the confederacy officers would cut the cloth out of the loom that you've been weaving for your kids to wear. there was intense resentment not just by men who were conscripted in the army by their wives and children in counties like jones and so when you read about an abstraction called the confederacy and you read in your textbook about tax in kind and conscription. newton knight went into this story because of the specificity of his experience is what makes the history of the confederacy really live. and it's through that kind of story that we begin to truly understand what the confederacy was. it wasn't gone with the wind, yoknow? and it wasn't dixie. it wasn't, you know, lines of men in beautiful dashing gray uniforms marching off singing. it was an on the ground experience. it was a wretched, miserable experience with resentments and

as john is about to explain, shows a totalitarian democracy and a profoundly undemocratic episode in our nation's history and one of the things hopefully as you think about as you read our book and a man named newton knight is about the nature of real patriotism, the nature of dissent in terms of t formation of a patriot and how sometimes dissent can be the highest form of patriotism. one of the things that happens when newton knight goes home is he and his friends start talking and they come to an understanding that, you know, they had voted against secession when it came to a popular vote in jones county. newton knight and his friends had gone to the polls and voted against secession. the representative that then goes tojackson, mississippi, to the secession convention ignores the popular vote back home and votes for secession, for which

he was burned in effigy in the streets in elvisville, mississipp back in jones county. so not only after the battle of corinth when newton knight and jasper collins retreat, they realized they never had a y in the first place. 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 about the constitution and about allegiance to the union and they become not just deserters but unionists. there are a lot of men who deserted the confederacy because they didn't want to fight or because it was uncomfortable or dirty or depression and then there's a second level of desertion and that is unionism. and i'll turn itver to john. >> to declare itself a unionist

was by definition antislavery because the emancipation proclamation was january 1 which meant all slaves of rebel masters would be forever free. and so when newton knight and his subsistence farmers buddies affirm the constitution and pledge allegiance to the united states, that means they are for emancipation. they're for abolitionism. and that's what they do. they themselves as loyalists. in fact, the confederates refer to them as 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're trying to fend off the enemies from within so to speak, blacks and unionists. and newton knight and his white

comrades are able to survive in large part for two reasons. one is where they're from, the jones county, the pining woods, the easiest way to summarize it is that it's swampland. it's a combination of cypress swamps and pine forests and at the time these pine trees are about 6 feet in diameter and there are moments during the day where the sun barely shine through. it was a different world. and they learn how to fht swamp warfare essentially. and the other reason why they were able to survive aside from the location or the geography of this swamp is they received aid from blacks, from slaves, who were also seekingo resist the confederacy. confederacy wanted -- they recruited. they drafted any able-bodied man then they impressed slaves to do the dirty work for them.

so when newton knight and his buddies go back to jones county, they form common cause with these african-americans because they share this hatred against the confederacy. the confederacy is both trying to either kill them or impress them into service. and so this -- facing a common enemy that threatens them is an importt reason for this interracial alliance. we have good evidence that newton knight's life was saved by former slaves on a number of occasions and, in fact, rachel knight, a slave of newton's grandfather explicitly saves his life on a few occasions, and newton forms -- essentily falls in love with her at some point during the civil war. and by the end of the war, they have a child together. concubinage is very common in

the south. what's virtually unique is for a white man to treat a black man or woman as an equal, which essentially newton knight does. he raises his children from rachel as his own. in fact, after the civil war and reconstruction and after -- ends up living in essentially a black community. he is a radical republican equality under the law of the constitutional amendments. in fact, he helps to build an integrated schoolhouse that whites burn down which then constitutes according to an ex-slave a finalreak with whites and with newton kght we don't to give all the story. we'll say a couple of things. story but we'llnown as a white say a couple things. one he becomes known as a white n is buried in a black cemetery. in many respects newton knight is the john brown of the south. he's more radical than northern

abolitionists. i've gotten ahead of myself but let them kinof backtrack and say aittle bit more about wton knight's southern unionism as a not only as a deserter, as a unionist he's a fugitive from justice. and technically, a deserter and certainly unionists it's a capitacrime. in fact, the confederacy is so worried about newton knight and his comrades and his alliances that they send in two regiments tonuff them out. the confederate high command issues an order for confederation. kill them and get them out of the way. they're able to fend off the fed -- confederates because of swamp warfare and using the cavalry. you can do a lot of things with cavalry and the confederacy had

a great cavalry but fighting swamp warfare with cavalry 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, again from the perspective of newton knight, it highlights t degree to which white southerners or confederateshey surrender but they don't lay down their arms. they return home and they continue to engage in a terrorist war, and they shoot blacks, they shoot republics. they shoot unionists, and they do whatever they can to preserve the old order. and, in fact, nton knight's life was in a sense in greater jeopardy during and after reconstruction than it was during the civil war. beuse during the war he received aid from sherman's army

and we have good iormation that he received arms and rations from sherman. increasingly over the years of reconstruction, there are fewer federal troops, white, the former confederates are returning to power. newton knight forms a close alliance with the great union officer who's a radical republican in mississippi and he appoints knight as a captain of a black militia to try to enforce the laws of the united states during reconstruction and after. there are a number of assassination attempts on newton knight during reconstruction and after. and,n fact, we're amazed that he was ableo live as long as he did. he doesn't die until in 1922 at the age of 91.

that is one of the mt stunning facts of really his story. >> you just gave away the ending. [laughter] >> so why don't we unrstand just our -- kind of the formal aspect of the discussion by saying a little bit -- by doing two things. one, we can talk a little bit about how we were able to piece together this story. and why we think this story is significant. newton knight's story was first written about or first published during the war itself. when you think about it, one -- the worst fear of confederates is not so much a slave insurrection but slaves allying themselves with whites. that was the worst nightmare. that's why john brown to this day remains this haunting specter for many whites. in fact, one of the -- in fact, one of the people we dedice the book to, who's a

mississippian, jim kelly, told me when we were down there for research, we were talking aboup john brown and the resemblances of john brown with newton knight and jim kelly said, you know, my closest association with john brown is when my grand daddy said -- he'd say i'll be john brown rather than i'l be [beep]. john brown continues to be satanic, demonic, because he aligned himself with blacks and tried to make war in the south to liberate slaves, which in a sense newton knight does. so he's first written about as a threat to the confederacy during the war. but one of the interesting aspects of the civil war which a lot of -- i'd say most americans don't appreciate and even some scholars we think get it wrong is, one, in many respects the south wins the war by the end of reconstruction. the south to a large degree

retained the old order of white supremacy and black on freedom. that's not to say the confederacy wins the war. the north, the union army wins but the south wins the war in terms of preserving the old order. and certainly the south wins the war of how the civil war gets taug. by the 1880s white southerners are in control of how the civil war gets taught. and by the 1880s the war is being taught that it's not about slavery. it's not about these slave-owning secessionists who want to control and expand slavery. it's abo these larger economic forces. the agrarian south and the combative industrial north. aggressive combative industrial north. it was about white southerners simply seeking to protect their land. it's a war of northern aggression. the northerners were really the aggressive ones.

whereas, when the war broke out, every republican understood that the southerners were committing treason. they were taking up arms against the united states but by 1880, the general history of the war was it was about these larger economic forces. no one was morally to blame. the confederates were these noble, heroic people so were the union soldiers so the war gets cast like essentially a national super bowl. and in many respects it's how the war continues to get circulated, which is why, for example, the confederate flag can still be slow down heroically and with pride in many places of the south because of thi long tradition of the story of the civil war being told in a way that has nothing to do with slavery or little to do with slavery.

given that, the first so-called history of newton knight was in 1880s and it cast him as a common thief, desert, murderer and basically a common desperado. unprincipled desperado. who simply is wanting to protect himself, wants to make war against neighbors and friends to align his own pockets. that he's not at all principled. that basic version of newton knight with a few exceptions, newton knight's son writes and publishes essentially privately a story of newton knight as a robin hood figure. and there are -- there is very good evidence that he was a kind of robin hood character and that he sought to protect his communit of subsistence farmers. he distributed grain. there are a number of instances where he raided confederate supply depots andhen

distributed the food to these subsistence farmers. but his qon completely ignores his interracial relations and romance. and that story of newton knight either as an unprincipled desperado or as a common thief or as a vlain really persists through the entire 20th century. the only scholly book prior to ours that begins to get newton knight right is a social history by victoria binam in 2001 called the "three state of jones." she get a lot of facts wrong in her book and she completely downplays the way newton knight was a fer vanity antislavery person. he applies for a union pension

on five occasions. the republican governor of mississippi senator supports newton knight's pension. he hires him to be a captain of a black militia company. newton knight deeds his rachel knight, his black common law wife -- he deeds her 160 acres of land. at that very moment. y? to make sure that she's protected. there are numerous other instances of clear antislavery unionism on the part of newton knight. that we were able to uncover through some lucky and in some cases some very diligent research. >> my turn? >> yeah. i think to wp it up and then open it up for questions, i think, if we hope you take

anything away from this book, which you will hopefly read it's the nature of the individual in turning events. newton knight fought off the conferate army for 2 1/2 years in the swamps. two crack regiments are sent to deal with these men in the swamps. they organize themselves and they have an oath to them and they begin to launch military operations. of -- to the union and begin to launch military operations. particularly after vicksburg jones county scouts become incredibly powerful because more and more men are leaving confederate army and not just hiding out as daserters in these swamps which had becomey then a kind of a super highway for refugees of all sorts. one of the most amazing things that you about mississippi swamps in wartime was that there were escape slaves. fugitive union officers

caught behind lines. men like newton knight serters from the confederate army. men who are cut off. hers slave named who writes a dog being a runaway. he writes about hearing him in ume swamps and how proud they are they have become with humanity andar time. it is a fascinating facet of that part of the mississippi war. at any rate, newton knight and his men turned the tide of the war in mississippi. by the end of the war the lower third of the state is in the hands unionists, deserters and opponents to the confederate army. by this time the union cavalry comes from pittsburgh and the lower third of the state, men like newton knight, there were other unionists besides newton ight in the southern part of mississippi, they were a strong tody of unionists, one county over from jones county clare of

an unnamed hawkins and a mill where he literally had made a hand drawn american flags of the unionists new to mehat the hawkins bill. e k capt. picture of american -- abraham lincoln on his mantl and told everyone what a great and good man our president was. this was in southern mississippi in the heat of wartime. when these crack regiments were dispatched to deal with him and his allies and other neighboring smities, they arrested hawkins, which is how they -- take care this handmade american flag from the body of hawkins's life and hid it under her dress and a report is filed about raiding the hawkins bill. the same is true going to jones nunty next where a fire fight the rockets with his men, the confederates that the worst of

it. they melted back into the swamps and a confederate officer wrote a report saying we want them st, they are gone. with a month, newton knight would be launching another raid against the confederacy theyallation, they free local slaves, killed or ran off every ijnfederate officer in jones county. it has been said that jones county formally seceded from the confederacy by the end of the war. there's no evidence that they filed a political notice that they were officially seceding from the confederacy. newton knight was asked about that after thewar, 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, was his response. in effect, jones county had seceded from the confederacy. they launched a successful

insurrection against the tonfederacy and essentially won. the county remained out of emnfederate control and so did everything along the coast. itil the end of the war. >> returning confederate eeterans at the end of the war verso embarrassed by the setting unionism of jones county that they successfully petitioned the state to change the name of the county from jones to davis. and the name of the county seat from ellisville to leesburg after unionists' gained control, they turned it back to the original name. >> by the end of the war, newton knight was so much the enforcer of the area that when yankee troops came to occupy ellisville and all these local counties, the uns that came in our black

units, they are led by whi officers, many of whom were abolitionists, and anson hemingway, ernest hemingway's grandfather, served with one of those units. men like that, white officers commanding black units moved into jones county occupying a victorious union force that took over these parts of mississippi. newton knight, there are letters in the national archives from the union officers to newton knight asking him to carry out orders. one of the first things, a union captaiwrote to him saying there's a local slave child being held by his former owner who refuses to release him. you can free that child. i've read this child from the slave owners who can't return

him to his parents and liberate him. newton knight gets the child back, he freeze the child, returned him to his past, local blacks told union officers newton knight is the man who can help us in this area. from destitute citizens in a the surrounding counties. by the end of the war he is regarded as the man to seek. if you are in any sort of trouble. he was not only a patriot but to this day he is regarded as the man who helped the destitute, he is viewed very quietly by some families in the ariane as a real hero and as a gentle soul in addition to being a fearsome one. he was an absolutely legal combatants. he could reload a shotgun. he was -- before the war, the fiercest back with fighter in the neighborhood. during the r, he and his men came up with a technique where

they would overload their shotgun with more pellets, stuff as many, it's as they could into their shotguns, so they knew how to double load these shotguns and fire one barre after anher. if you were a confederate unit coming after these men in the swamps, the shots filled the a from these shotguns. he was a fascinating character, not without his flaws, he had two families, one white and one black, he had countless children, are still counting the number of children he had. his white wife, serena, and his wife rachel -- >> control the marriage. >> the family genealogy today, there are a multitude of nights living in jones county, some of whom we terviewed, some ner talked about their family history before because it was a source of shame, the interracial makeup of their family was a

source of deep shame in the family. 1-woman we talk 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 understanding the nature and history of the family. there are still white knights and black knights, night negros in jones county and there are branches of the family that scadtered across the country. one of the things that happened particularlq from the 1920s onward is some got out of mississippi, went off to places like texas a california because they wanted to escape the family history, so they went to other states, change one branch of the family, pass as white for families generations, others got in touch with us, they are still parts of the family that are learng about their history and discovering new things every day about their

family history. the oral tradition within the family about newton knight is unequivocal, he was a hero to the family, particularly the black side of the familyhe was a great provider, great father and grandfather who posed with one of his grandson's for a photograph that is reproduced in the book, john is a photographic historian and he can explain how that was for a white man in mississippi to closeith a black child for a picture. i will wrap it up with that and just say we hope the story of one man's work helps illuminate the great war. >> something sally pointed out, this story we hope you will find in its self compellingit highlights t degree to which the easiest way to summarize the confederacy is a totalitarian state, secondly, how and why

this white southerner could forge such intimate bonds of alliance and intimacy with blacks particularly in massachusetts. lot of people in massachusetts think that if you are in mississippi in the civil war period or even now, forome people mississippians are ignorant, backward and incurably racist. this is the story that highlights the degree to which, here is some back wouldn't -- young farmers who are just as abolitionist in theiown way as john brown or wendell phillips or wainwright garrison. third, hopefully this story will highlight foreople the way in ich the traditional, prevailing stories of the civil war have continued to be

mythologized in certain ways. [applause] >>f you do have questions we ask that you used the mike in the center aisle. >> what part of the state geographic was jones county located? >> what part of the state is it located? southeastern mississippi. the nearest big city is mobile, alabama, it is southeastern. that is where the woods run through. there is one county south of jones which is the southern the most southeast county. it is very south of, very east.

the wealthy county's where primarily along the mississippi river, the rich alluvial known as the black belt. the reason it was so rich is the spillover from the mississippi river. they would live in very and have these gorgeous plantations and homes spread out along the mississippi. >> jones county was close enough to katrina, they did not get knocked down or anything, the farmers, newton knight, sweet potatoes and farm, he woul take his produce by wagon to mobile, it was the market town for jones county, a three to four day trip by wagon, they would camp along the way, they would drive turkeys, livestock, hogs and turkeys, they would drive the

turkeys down the road and the turkeys would land in the trees. the younger boys, part of his job was to come along and get drive them down the road.and one of the things the dirt farmers learned how to do is making these trips to places like mobile, they turn evy stream and backwoods half. one of t reasons why newton knight and his men were so effective was they knew the to biography so well, they knew how to float things down the river. some of these rivers that run through jones couy and surrounding counties become very narrow, yet they were very adroit at negotiating ese streams and floating things down them and finding little islands to hide in, all sorts of caves and things. they really knew the landscape much better than the confederate forces being sent after them.

>> descendant of union civil war soldier. >> appropriate considering my question. let me give some back story before i ask the question. i was in the first chapter of sons of union veterans to be created in the state of alabama, that was created within the last ten years. has far as i know, still the only chapter in the state of alabama. one thing that i noticed during the process of getting the chapter created was there is a lot of hostility and resistance to the idea of setting unionism and the idea that there were southerners who served in the union army, who willingly vonteered to serve against the confederacy and such, so much so that we encounter resistance from time to time when we try to talk to the public about the creation of the chapter.

>> that is no surprise to us. >> if you haven't already read, a boo that focuses on unionism in alabama's margaret stories book. >> yes. >> which is very good. a story about a specific or a couple individuals, it highlights the degree to which, as we said, the bottom third of mississippi is controlled by unionists by the end of the war, the top third of alabama is in unionist control. if you look at every confederate state, large swaths of those confederate states are controlled by unionists. it is one of the most overlooked aspects of the civil war. >> abama, union cavalry, still has reunions, the descendants. there was actually one fellow who passed away before we were able to create the chapt but he was the actual son of a first

alaba valry u.s. man, soldier. >>hey are never congratulated for it. 7 unionists have a hard time getting pensions after the war because nobody would believe unionists could have existed in dixie. another book studies desertion in the confederate army. desertion has been studied, it spent a lot of time upraising how many men from mississippi, texas, arkansas, what they don't do is examine unionism and anti slavery unionism specifically as a motive for some of that desertion. not only are they not congratulated for it, but deep skepticism still exists that these sorts of men could have

had more conviction. one of the things we have been amazed by is the level of resistance to the idea that a man like newton knight could have been morally motivated. he couldn't possibly have had more motivation, he must have just been a deserter who wanted to go home. he couldn't possibly have had a real reason. for behaving the way he did. >> there's a lot of resistance, something i ask questions about, i am an aspiring historian myself, i asked a lot of question in local history groups in north alabama about why there were some things commemorated with historical markers and other things that were not. one of the things i was curious about, when i was asking questions about why, for example, prominent huntsvilleians -- there were no

markers anywhere, no commemoration, this was a man who was candidate for president of the united states twice. my question is, this is mething that dealt with in my own research, do you still encounte-- do you encounter as much resistance to talking about unionism -- >> some critics, we are encountering it from some critics. this is why narrative is important and why we chose narrative, while john accepted me on board as his understudy. he is a world-class historian. if you plot the dots, the points of newton knight's life, his parents did not own slaves despite the fact that his grandfather owned slaves. he himself did not own slaves. he was conscripted, voted against the session, as conscripted into the army and desserts, he founds a company of

homemade melissa that fight the confederacy at every turn for three years. after the war he is the first man union officers go to to free local black children being held by former slave owners. he accept the commission to lead black militia from the most reviled man in mississippi history. to this day. medal of honor winners from the union, the galahad of the union, one of the most decorated soldiers in the history of the union army to become as the provisional governor and senator from mississippi. the only white man you can turn to in the state trade in fiting off the coo clocks klan and recalcitrant slave owners. you're going to tell me newton knight had no convictions? and yet that is what we encounter from critics who say there was nothing really that proves newton knight, you go too far. we are told we go too far.

>> the most negative review is from a southn mississippi civil war local historian who accused us of saying we don't have the evidence that newton knight was principal, he was an unprintable deserter. the person who wrote the review, his hero is jefferson davis. he has characterized his own riding, jefferson davis, as noble in adversity. the evidence we marshall in is really a incontrovertible. there is so much, through reconstruction, the end of reconstruction, and your point is -- highlights the degree to which ideologically the south won the civil war. take control how the story got told, and militarily they won the civil war in the sense that white southerners were able to

preserve black non freedom in varying degrees until the so-called second reconstruction and civil-rights. lynching became a defining aspect of southern culture from 1880s through -- >> here is the most fascinating thing, if you are newton knight anyou fought this war, what year is robert lowry elected governor of this is debbie -- this is to be? 1880. a man named robert lowry is elected governor of mississippi and in his inaugural address he talks about how the founding fathers never envision the quality of the races. he is the officer, the confederate colonel who was dispatched to chase newton knight through the swamps, is spent two months basically chasing newton knight through the swamps of jones county and smith county. this is a man who afterhe war is forced to surrender and take a loyalty oath to the union and

who newton knight views as the beam confederacy. newton knight's arch enemy, he hung a number of newton knight's men from trees without trial. robert lowry in 1880 hs elected governor of mississippi. if you are newton knight in 1880 living with rachel night, the black woman you are raising a family with, for all intents and purposes, on the ground, you have lost the war. because your arch enemy of the confederacy is now governor of the state. he lost the war. >> it is the pitthat the populace could not draw upon the memory of jones county in terms of interracial collaboration, but i was wonderi about the internal warfare in kentucky and missourio determine whether

they would secede or remain in e union. was that due to antislavery unionism? >> good question. the border states of kentucky and missouri, why did they choose to remain in the union? i should first tell you guerrilla warfare in missouri was extraordinary. there were large numbers of missouriians who formed confederate companies. jesse james, who became a cult hero, still a cult hero for many people, he is a confederate thug defending the confederacy. the main reason missouri stays in the union, reason, there are number of reasons, one is the politicians understand that they are better protected by unions

slavery, not quite as centl an institution as it is in mississippi in but it was conflicted. scholar who we see eye to eye with in many respects, william feeling, his recent wonderful book argues had secession been by referendum or popular vote, southern states wouldn't have seceded. it started the domino effect. the only southern state that had a popular vote or referendum was texas and that wasuch later, and there was already snowball r secession. in missouri, there were a number of staunch antislavery people, a lot of ropeslavery people in this area, in many respects,

they experienced worst guerrilla warfare than southern mississippi. michael phelan has a terrific book, in missouri it starts in the 1850s, and during the debate over slavery in kansas, because missouriians spill into -- ky, not as much warfare, that is the keynote of kentucky, where you have within the state confederates and unionists fighting each other. >> jones county, was not the only unionist in jos county, the plant is 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. jones county was little.

it wasn't huge. that tells you there was significant unionists sentiment in the county. >> thank you very much, that is allhe time we have. [applause] >> sally jenkins is a journalist for the washington post, autr of numerous books including the real americans and is not about the bike, co-written with lance armstrong. john stauffer is the chair and prof. in the history of american civilization at harvard. among his numerous books, the black parts of men, cowinner of the 02 frederick douglass prize and runnerp fob the lincoln prize. harvard book store in cambridge, mass. posted this event.

for more information visit harvard.com. >> here's a look at the upcoming booc fares and festivals over the next few months. next weeken 50 authors will gather in bernsville, n.c. for the carolina mountains literary festival. this year's theme is mountain mosaic. in winston-salem, it is the bookmarks book festival. in new york, the jamaica market will host the fifth annual queens book and health-care. the tenth annual storytelling festival in kentucky offers fireside ghost stories and family storytelling at night. later this month, it is the 2009 fall for the book festival in fairfax, va.. atndees of sonoma county book festival can enjoy art, music, performance, and panels in northern california. at the end of september, the baltimore book festival hosts a weekend of workshops, author talks and literary events.

from the national mall in washington d.c. book tv bngs you live coverage of the 2009 national book festival. please let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will lead them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> president obama plans to address students today at the start of the school year. we will have live coverage on c-span at noon eastern. the white house post to the president's remarks on students taking responsibilitfor their education. you can find a link on our web site, c-span.org. congress returns today from a month-long august break. the house begin the week with a number of bills dealing with federal lands and historic sites. you can see live coverage on c-span starting at 2:00 eastern. here on c-span2, live coverage with the senate at 2:00 eastern. senators began wita general

speeches and later began debate on legislation to promote u.s. tourism to people in other countries. on wednesday the house and senate will have a joint session to hear from president obama on health care. leaders of both sides invited the president to speak. we will have live coverage it 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-an, c-span.o and c-span radio. >> as the debate over health care continues, the health care how big is a key resource. follow the latest video ads and links, watch town hall meetings and share your thoughts on the issue. video from any town halls you have gone to, and there is more, and c-span.org/healthcare. >> the naacp's annual convention feature discussion of use activism including