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The State of Jones (2009)

por Sally Jenkins, John Stauffer

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2961388,201 (3.77)20
Biography & Autobiography. History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:

New York Times bestselling author Sally Jenkins and distinguished Harvard professor John Stauffer mine a nearly forgotten piece of Civil War history and strike gold in this surprising account of the only Southern county to secede from the Confederacy.

The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War??the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man??s war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War. Knight??s life story mirrors the little-known story of class struggle in the South??and it shatters the image of the Confederacy as a unified front against the Union.
This riveting investigative account takes us inside the battle of Corinth, where thousands lost their lives over less than a quarter mile of land, and to the dreadful siege of Vicksburg, presenting a gritty picture of a war in which generals sacrificed thousands through their arrogance and ignorance. Off the battlefield, the Newton Knight story is rich in drama as well. He was a man with two loves: his wife, who was forced to flee her home simply to survive, and an ex-slave named Rachel, who, in effect, became his second wife. It was Rachel who cared for Knight during the war when he was hunted by the Confederates, and, later, when members of the Knight clan sought revenge for the disgrace he had brought upon the family name.
Working hand in hand with John Stauffer, distinguished chair and professor of the History of American Civilization at Harvard University, Sally Jenkins has made the leap from preeminent sportswriter to a historical writer endowed with the accuracy, drive, and passion of Doris Kearns Goodwin. The result is Civil War history at its
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Mostrando 1-5 de 13 (seguinte | mostrar todos)
This book can't decide if it wants to be a historical fiction or a history book. It provides a fairly comprehensive walk through the life of a very interesting historical figure who is not nearly as well known as he should be, but it starts by trying to bring the story out in the form of a flashback narrative. This attempt largely fizzles out and the story loses the perspective it sets up at the start and devolves into an unemotional historical summary.

There are a lot of things that couldn't be known by the elderly Knight who is supposedly recounting the story and it is unclear how much of this is known fact or pure conjecture. Other circumstances are told with the uncertainty of a non-fiction but are things that Knight would have definitely known the details of.

Sources are occasionally cited and exact quotes given but often times you are left wondering what is fact and what is conjecture.

What this amounts to is a poorly cited historical account seasoned poorly with small amounts of fiction that detract and confuse at times.

A decent account overall, but not suitable for historical research and not woven well enough into a narrative to be organically entertaining. The book tries to be two things and ends up partially failing at both. ( )
  McCarthys | Mar 29, 2023 |
The book discusses a little known or rarely described element of the Civil War, that of Southern dissidents who fought against the Confederacy while in the South. It wasn't a nail-biting exciting journal, but interesting history nonetheless. ( )
  rsutto22 | Jul 15, 2021 |
Review of: The State of Jones, by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer,
by Stan Prager (9-24-16)

A stubborn incongruity to the again resurgent southern “Myth of the Lost Cause” is that the commitment to secession was far from universal. In fact, about one hundred thousand white southern loyalists fought for the Union; except for South Carolina every state of the Confederacy sent at least one battalion to join the northern ranks. More significantly perhaps is that there were multiple geographies where Unionist sentiment prevailed throughout the conflict, especially those where hardscrabble farming was far removed from the arena of the slave-holding plantation elite. Indeed, a great chunk of a cornerstone Confederate state broke off to become the new loyal union state of West Virginia. A less well known locale is the subject of The State of Jones, by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer, the tale – a blurred mix of fact and legend – of how pockets of loyalists in Jones County, in eastern Mississippi, were led by the colorful Newton Knight to secede from the Confederacy and form the “Free State of Jones.” This book, which dates back to 2009, served as the basis for the 2016 motion picture featuring Matthew McConaughey, which has brought the story to a much wider audience.
Despite the title, Newton Knight – rather than the State of Jones – is the true central character, which forms both a strength and a weakness to the book. The strength is that a biographical figure serving as focal point often enriches an unfolding historical narrative. The weakness in this case is that the perspective is often severely delimited to that figure, which diminishes the wider view. The authors introduce us to Newton Knight in 1921, interviewed in the twilight of his days by journalist Meigs Frost. It is hard to know what to make of him, especially since much of what is known about him is derived from his reminisces and those partisans who were loyal to him. Was he a heroic figure with a strong moral core and loyalty to an unwavering ideological outlook? Or was he rather an opportunistic scalawag, a narcissistic self-serving outlaw that constructed his ethical framework entirely to suit his own interests? He seems to be a bit of both, and to their credit Jenkins and Stauffer largely tell the story as they have it and leave it to the reader to pass judgment, although overall Knight tends to come off as more of a sympathetic figure than not in the course of this account.
Newton Knight was apparently a larger than life character, imposing both physically by his great stature and otherwise by the strength of his disposition, which encompassed a devotion to his Baptist “primitive” faith, a personal aversion to alcohol and a moral opposition to slavery. Knight, like many others in Jones County, was a poor white dirt farmer who had little sympathy for the Confederate cause, especially because of his anti-slavery views. Nevertheless, as the draft loomed, he joined the army and served as both soldier and hospital orderly. His service did not last long. Disillusioned, he deserted and teamed up with other Unionists as a guerrilla fighter, leading the “Knight Company,” the genesis of the forces that eventually broke Jones County off from the CSA and what was later more or less formalized as the “Free State of Jones.”
Naturally, pro-Confederates viewed Knight and his band as traitors. And while the reader may be sympathetic to Knight’s cause, it is often difficult not to wince at his methods, which as a guerrilla frequently eschewed the rules of war to include bushwhacking and the assassination of opponents, in and out of uniform. Also, it becomes increasingly ambiguous whether Knight was really fighting for any cause other than what best suited Newton Knight.
Knight differed from the majority of southern Unionists not only in his opposition to secession but also in his stand against slavery and his views on African-Americans, which encompassed not only abolition but a kind of equality which would have been viewed at the time as extremely radical, north or south. Knight, who was married and had multiple children with his Caucasian wife, also became involved with an African-American former slave named Rachel with whom he sired many more children. While it was hardly unusual for southern white men to consort with black women in the antebellum era – slaveholders including such notable figures as Jefferson commonly (if hardly publicly) had slave concubines that they impregnated – Knight went a giant step further as he eventually also took Rachel to be his wife, and came to treat all of his offspring and various relatives, white and black, as full equals. This story spills over into the post-war period, with Knight serving as a despised Republican officeholder in the Reconstruction era. This is perhaps the most captivating part of the book, as the “Free State of Jones” is left in the dust and we observe the tragedy in microcosm in eastern Mississippi as the south loses the war but essentially wins the peace, as Reconstruction gives way to Redemption, as the brief experiment of attempts at equality end ruthlessly as African-Americans are murdered, terrorized, dehumanized and turned into second-class citizens for a century to come. Yet, somehow Newton Knight not only weathers the calamities about him but thrives, carving out his own enclave for his ever expanding inter-racial family, which somewhat uncomfortably intermarries amongst themselves. Hero or villain or a blend of the two, Newton Knight remained a fascinating and singular character throughout his long life.
Given the wealth of great material, this should have been a far better book, but alas it often falls flat. I would chalk that up to the fact that there are two authors, which frequently is problematic in any such volume. Audiophiles will tell you that CD’s never sound as good as vinyl records because the highs and lows are averaged out – Keith Moon’s percussion is simply not as dramatic on a “Who” CD as it is on vinyl; the passion is, if not lost, deeply compromised. Something similar often occurs when two authors attempt to speak with a single voice in a narrative – in this case Stauffer, a Harvard professor of history, and Jenkins, an award-winning journalist – and here again what is most conspicuously diminished is the passion of the telling of the tale. Still, it remains a compelling story and despite this flaw I would recommend it.

My review of: "The State of Jones," by Sally Jenkins & John Stauffer, is live on my book blog: https://regarp.com/2016/09/25/review-of-the-state-of-jones-by-sally-jenkins-and-... ( )
  Garp83 | Sep 25, 2016 |
The story of the pro-Union guerrilla resistance organized by hard-scrabble dirt farmer Newton Knight in southeastern Mississippi, which appears to be the Wild West of the South. Despite his great success, at great cost, Knight's post-war struggle against the overwhelming pressures of the Southern Cause is heart-breaking. The aristocrats who made up the Confederacy shoved through secession even though Jones County was overwhelmingly pro-Union. When the war ended, politics returned them to power starting with President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's Southern Democrat successor who may have been pro-Union, but was unrelentingly racist. Congress took the power over the South away from him and kicked the rebels out, but Grant, of all people, returned them to power as a trade-off, then the Democrats, seeking to replace the Republicans in office, defanged and later removed the military occupiers, letting the ex-Confederates drive out and kill Republicans and blacks - who were often the same - and use the law as locally interpreted, to keep the black man down for another 100 years. Knight, who should've been a hero, was forced to withdraw to his farm, always armed against possible assassination. But while he rode during the Civil War with his Union guerrillas - so recognized by the North - he delivered amazing rear-area victories. Well-deserved recognition for a man little known whose story will be retold, in Hollywood fashion, in an upcoming Mathew McConaughey movie. Brilliant story, a genuine page-turner. Revealing in its view of life in the South, the attitude towards the aristocratic secessionists, and the success in achieving rebel goals after the war ended, among other things. ( )
  NickHowes | Mar 5, 2016 |
This amazing history book reads like a novel. I was fascinated at every turn: The description of the siege at Vicksburg, the utter decimation visited on the South as wartime policy, and the heartrending aftermath of the war. I'd been aware that blacks had been granted the vote in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War; I had never fully understood why the federal government allowed Jim Crow laws and the essential reversal of all the North fought for.

This beautifully written tome explains a great deal of how deep and all-encompassing not only Southern pride, but Southern racism really was. Is? It didn't touch on current politics, seeming to assume that in the decades since the Civil Rights Act, the teeming morass of racism, classism and political division has been largely tamped -- or perhaps assuming it best not to touch on current issues.

I finished this book shocked and horrified at all the atrocities committed during the Civil War and the following decades. During the first part of the book, Newton Knight and his band of Unionists reminded me so much of Robin Hood that I was actually disappointed when Confederate generals succeeded in hanging or shooting men from Jones County. Disappointed not just for the pointless deaths, but that Knight hadn't ridden down like an avenging angel and stopped the Confederate troops after they caught his men.

Ridiculous, I know, but seriously. Read about Knight defying Confederate-installed sheriffs, robbing from rich plantation owners to feed the poor whites and emancipated slaves, and living in the Mississippi swamps throughout the war and try not to make the Robin Hood parallel.

It's a boldly written, beautifully pieced-together book. It's rife with heroism, love, and betrayal -- all on both a grand and a personal scale. This is probably the most evocative, intriguing look at the Civil War South I've ever had the pleasure of reading. ( )
1 vote mephistia | Apr 6, 2013 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 13 (seguinte | mostrar todos)
Jenkins and Stauffer create a lively narrative, but is it factual — or fictionalized, like the movie script about Knight by the screenwriter Gary Ross, which, the authors report, inspired them to write the book?... Jenkins and Stauffer bring historical contexts to life and offer provocative interpretations, but they pile hunch upon hunch about Knight himself. Unless a new cache of sources about his life turns up, he’ll remain as elusive to biographers as he was to the Confederate troops that chased him through the wooded marshes of Jones County.
 
This sounds like a gripping tale, but it falls flat in the hands of Washington Post reporter Sally Jenkins and Harvard professor John Stauffer. Taking a bare framework of documented evidence, they upholster it heavily with supposition, presumption and contrived scenes based on the experiences of people who had little or nothing to do with Knight. The result is a discursive kind of pseudohistory.
adicionada por Shortride | editarThe Seattle Times, Steve Raymond (Jul 28, 2009)
 
Ms. Jenkins, a journalist, and Mr. Stauffer, a historian, have brought fresh attention to a little-known and interesting sidebar of Civil War ­history...It would have helped the authors’ argument if the book were simply better organized—the narrative is often difficult to follow—and if they had been more comfortable with Civil War history.
 
[Jenkins and Stauffer] relate Newt Knight’s story in suitably dramatic and often flamboyant fashion.
 
The State of Jones is an entertaining, informative book about a courageous group of Southerners clearly ahead of their time. It offers a refreshing look at the issues surrounding the Civil War, and some delightful surprises for even the most knowledgeable history buff.
adicionada por Shortride | editarBookPage, John T. Slania (Jul 1, 2009)
 

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I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember those that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, in behalf of his despised poor, was not wrong, but right. - John Brown, "Last Address to the Virginia Court," 1859
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For Gary Ross, Phyllis Grann, and Jim Kelly, the three great minds who brought us together, with enormous gratitude and affection.
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The newspaperman drove his big car along a rutted red-clay country road, sending up garlands of Mississippi backwoods dust.
1921, Border of Jones and Jasper Counties, Mississippi
The newspaperman drove his big city car along a rutted red-clay country road, sending up garlands of Mississippi backwoods dust.
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Biography & Autobiography. History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:

New York Times bestselling author Sally Jenkins and distinguished Harvard professor John Stauffer mine a nearly forgotten piece of Civil War history and strike gold in this surprising account of the only Southern county to secede from the Confederacy.

The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War??the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man??s war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War. Knight??s life story mirrors the little-known story of class struggle in the South??and it shatters the image of the Confederacy as a unified front against the Union.
This riveting investigative account takes us inside the battle of Corinth, where thousands lost their lives over less than a quarter mile of land, and to the dreadful siege of Vicksburg, presenting a gritty picture of a war in which generals sacrificed thousands through their arrogance and ignorance. Off the battlefield, the Newton Knight story is rich in drama as well. He was a man with two loves: his wife, who was forced to flee her home simply to survive, and an ex-slave named Rachel, who, in effect, became his second wife. It was Rachel who cared for Knight during the war when he was hunted by the Confederates, and, later, when members of the Knight clan sought revenge for the disgrace he had brought upon the family name.
Working hand in hand with John Stauffer, distinguished chair and professor of the History of American Civilization at Harvard University, Sally Jenkins has made the leap from preeminent sportswriter to a historical writer endowed with the accuracy, drive, and passion of Doris Kearns Goodwin. The result is Civil War history at its

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