CHAPTER 19

Reconstruction

It has always been the rule, in time of war, for a few to “live off the fat o’ land,” and so was the case in Jones County. Amid the desolation of ruin, and ravage of starvation, a few apparently prospered, and a quantity of gold was cached away. In a few of the homes, there was still to be found elegance of living, as the inhabitants were usually warned of the approach of raiding Yankees, and prized household possessions were carefully hidden.

One family in Ellisville managed to save their belongings by possessing the knowledge of an old gully, where a series of sinkholes had started a landslide, and the caved out area had become large and treacherous to a horse rider. Down in the bottom of this gully was dry sand, and fallen pine straw. Although it was in open view of the trail, it provided a perfect place of concealment.

Just ahead of the invaders, the feather beds and pillows, the china and silver, and personal finery of members of the household was carried down to this old gully and buried beneath the dry sand, and more dry pine straw was gathered from the hillsides and deposited carefully in a natural like manner over the surface.

Since there were no tracks or traces of disturbance, the pilferers rode by, on the trail above, followed by scouts of the Knight Company, with neither party giving more than a downward glance in passing.

On the other hand, families were made destitute, and in the face of starvation, widows and orphans were compelled to cast aside pride and class distinction in order to gain assistance from the hardy peasantry, who seemed able to cope with the situation.

The day of governesses and private tutors was forever past. Soon the children of the upper class were associating with those of the more rugged citizens, who were formerly treated with polite disdain.

It is safe to say that the invasion of the North gave the South a half-century setback, socially, economically, and educationally, most especially educationally. And from this conflict there can never be complete recovery.

As people became more and more wrought up over the carpetbag rule in the South, hatred for Captain Knight increased.

He became wary as a cat, and perhaps that is the reason he lived to be an old and repentant man. Soon he came to distrust his friends, and members of his old Company who had stuck beside him through thick and thin turned him the cold shoulder. He sensed the change, and of them he also became suspicious.

His mouth twitched and worked, in keeping with his moods, until the handsomeness began to disappear, and in the place of the ready smile, was a smirk that added to the cruelness of his cold gaze. Newt always looked one in the eye for a second, before shifting his eyes, as if seeking out a hidden enemy. Then he would dart another sharp quick look, before resuming, or beginning a conversation. Always on the alert! Those eyes remained with the man who looked into them. In them there was a compelling fascination, of a strangeness that made an impression on the subconscious mind that time did not erase.

Now, as the Captain entered Ellisville, he rode with caution, for he knew that enemies were out to get him.

“Old Fox,” was a suitable name, and that he was called, for with his knowledge of danger, it seemed that uncommon cunningness was at his command.

He was able to see through a pretended friendship. And on an occasion several years after the surrender, as he was in town, he chanced to meet two old friends who were glad to see him.

The welcome was too warm! They were too anxious to solicit his confidence and overdid the flattery.

After hearty greetings, they brought up the subject of old times, and the days when he was the great leader of the band. They reminded him that he was still, although unpopular with the families of the Confederates, the greatest man in the state. That he was spoken of as the slyest man that ever attempted to outwit the cavalry. They mentioned the narrow escapes he had had, and how he had shot his way out, when the odds were against him. And in truth there never was a better marksman than Newt Knight!

Finally, the friends came around to the point and proposed a scheme to get their intended victim out of town and away to a nearby swamp.

They told him that they would greatly enjoy having him take along his gun, conceal himself in a thicket, and let them from a distance observe the technique he had used in slaughtering his pursuers when he became cornered and had no alternative.

The Captain concealed his suspicions and obligingly went along pleasantly conversing, as they walked the open road, leading out of the town. From the open road, they were soon to enter a dim trail, which they traversed to another path. They left the path, and the three walked out into the thick brush.

One of the friends asked Knight to back himself into the bushes, leaving only his chest and head exposed, raise his gun up in a firing position, and pose for a picture to be taken.

The other friend stepped up and asked Newt for his gun, “So that you can make a break, and run through the brush, as if getting away,” he explained.

But Newt replied, “No. I’ll give my gun to no man, but I’ll give you both barrels if you don’t leave here, and leave here fast!” Quicker than lightning, he had his aim on both men, who raised high their hands, and started backing off, protesting that this was a mistake; that they were innocent of any wrong intentions.

Newt said one word, “Run!” And as they turned to run, hands still upraised, a mighty blast from the old gun tore up the ground at their feet.

These two men were forever afraid of Newt, and kept out of his sight after this plan to murder him fell through.

But other men had plans also to kill him.

It was known, and well understood, that if this man were openly slain, the Federal government would take action, since he was an officer. Or a few of his old gang who remained faithful would retaliate, so it was safer to plan to ensnare him in such a manner as to make the evidence appear that the act was self-defense, an accident, or possibly suicide.

However, after the first attempt, Newt became even more careful and suspicious.

He cautioned his family not to trust any person. He taught his children that any person who seemed overly friendly was an enemy. He told them not to ever let any man hug them, or pat their backs, that such an outward show of good fellowship was deceit in disguise.

Captain Knight was also a Federal Revenue Collector, but it was not this job that caused men to become his enemies.

On an occasion shortly after the picture-making incident, he was on his way to Jackson to attend to business, which was not unusual, and was waylaid at Newton, Mississippi, by six men who had planned to take his life.

It was known, generally, that he was often in Jackson for two or three weeks at a time, and that he went and came by way of this little town.

While Knight was waiting for the train, he overheard one man say to another, “That’s him! Let’s go let the others know that we have spotted him, and get several together to help, and we will kill him, this time, and it cannot be proven who did it.”

Newt did not so much as bat an eye. He pretended not to have heard, and as soon as the men had rounded the corner of the station, he darted out onto the cotton platform and hid behind bales of cotton to wait for the train to pull in.

Soon his adversaries reappeared.

From this vantage point, Newt could observe them searching for him, and when they were convinced that he had given them the slip, they sauntered upon the very platform, and leaned against bales of cotton very near where he crouched, scarcely breathing. There, he heard every word they said. They talked about him, and his agility in making a getaway, and about how they would like to get their hands on him and place a rope about his neck!

Presently, the train arrived, and the men who would kill him, were between him and the coach. So for a minute, he experienced the fright of a hunted animal. He could not remain under the cotton bales, and if he made for the train, he would be shot! But the excitement of the approaching train gave him cover, for it attracted the attention of the six men, and Newt slipped from the platform, and made a dive for the moving train as it pulled away from the station. Just as he gained the caboose, he thought he heard one say, “Missed him again, but we’ll get ’im on the return.”

The Captain stood bareheaded, and gaily waved his black hat, as the train rounded a bend and disappeared from sight.

When Newt got to Jackson, he went to the governor and told him of the experience. The governor immediately formed a plan:

“We will trick them when you go back,” he said. “You must be well armed, and on guard to defend yourself. You must change your appearance, so that you will not be easily recognized. You must shave off your full beard, and have your hair cut, and you must wear different clothes.”

So when the business in Jackson was completed, Newt went about the business of changing his appearance.

Several days later, when the train arrived in Newton, a dude stepped off, wearing a new and shiny pistol in an elaborate holster. His hat was a soft dull gray, and he wore it handsomely, set back from his forehead. His shirt was a “store bought,” finely tucked down the front. His boots were shined, and he looked not at all like a hunted man, or the man who had leaped upon a moving train, wearing a big black hat, two weeks before!

When he reached home, his own children did not recognize him and could not, at first, believe that this handsome stranger was their father.

Now, as the Captain had assumed an air of aloofness, and scarcely spoke to the remnant of his old cronies, they too became less ardent, and not realizing that it was the strain which public opinion was having upon their old leader, they thought that he had some personal grudge and wished to separate himself from them.

When he went into Ellisville, he was not accompanied by the gay and noisy band but went alone.

There was not much left for him to do.

Most of the old slaves, although free to go and come, preferred to remain with their former owners.

There were not so many arrogant and disrespectful negroes in this part of the country, as there were in other sections, because most of the population of black people were born here, or were brought here by people moving in and were reared by good families.

At last, free! The good misguided, misinformed negroes thought that all they had to do was walk out and claim a parcel of land, settle there, and be the owner.

Abolitionist propaganda had worked them up to a stage of expectancy, and they were waiting for the Union to buy them a fat horse. Many expected two fat horses, and a carriage, fine clothes, and to be set up equal with the white masters.

A slave girl, Elsie Duckworth, aged sixteen, upon being told that she was free, rushed out of the quarters on her master’s plantation. She ran like a wild animal that had been released from its cage. Over the hills and fields she ran, across woodlands and stream, with the one thought prevailing, Free! Free!

A song rang from her lips, a wordless song, a song that only a negro woman can sing. A low sweet hum, that rises to a strange falsetto, followed by treble notes, musical and wild.

Exhausted, Elsie returned to the orchard of her ex-master, and with a grubbing hoe, removed sprouts which grew from the base of the trunks of his apple and peach trees.

These she gathered up in her arms, climbed over the rail fence, and there on a woodland slant, she decided to plant an orchard. Elsie’s orchard! With the endless song of happiness continued, as she carefully spaded the ground and set out her little trees, she did not realize that this ground could never be hers, as it was part of the master’s plantation.

Such pathos was not uncommon. Always seeking something better, these people, unused to shifting for themselves, became more and more distressed, as the clothing which they wore away from the master’s homes became more and more ragged. From ragged, it came to tatters, and they were unable to hide the nakedness of their empty bellies.

The roads were a dust-bed in dry weather, a slew of thick mud after a rain. But the negroes, barefoot, winter and summer mushed through the hot dust, or the icy mud, in search of food or a place to lay their heads.

Mercifully, the South, with its long growing season, provided food, such as it was. In the spring, there were berries growing wild and of many varieties, the huckleberry, the blackberry, dewberry, mulberry, and gooseberry, and as spring opened into summer the negroes ate every maypop (fruit of the passion flower). Then autumn came, with wild grapes and muscadines and wild nuts. The chinquapin, chestnuts, and walnuts peppered the hillsides. The persimmons, bright with the first frost, became ripe and luscious. So all, though hungry most of the time, managed to survive.

There were loads of household goods drawn by ox wagons over the trails, the personal belongings of displaced persons, in search of new homes after the war. Many people left Jones County immediately after the surrender.

An old letter says in part:

“Here we are, set up in our new home, and we are making a good start. I have thirty young turkeys, and we have a nice garden, and good neighbors. The people here seem just like the people in Cracker’s Neck.

“We could be happy here but for one thing. My father’s old slaves have found out where I am, and they have followed me here. They think we could keep them, but we can’t, they are a pitiful sight. Him and her, grown man and woman and they act like the five little ones they have hungry, and she is a lookin’ agin. There bodys are fat enough but they are neckid, and I don’t know what is to become of them. I dont want this one to be born here in or crib. We have to let them sleep on the fodder as we have no other place.”

The letter makes no further mention of the unfortunate black family, and the subject is abruptly changed to inquire about the whereabouts of other people.

After it began to dawn on these people that their livelihood depended upon their labors, and that they would not receive any assistance from any other people than “their white folks” in the South, many were willing to work, but there was nothing with which to pay them for their services! So, an old bone, to boil as seasoning with a pot of greens, became pay for a day’s labor in the fields.

The joy of living ebbed from the blacks. No longer did they sing as they worked. A saddened mother coined the words for a prayer, and her little ones, often gathered together, from other plantations miles away, where they had been sold or exchanged, joined her in repeating the words. A low sad mumble swelled into wails of lamentation, as all labored together for their bread.

Some, in the fall of the year, stripped sugar cane, worked at the molasses mills at feeding the cane into the huge rollers that squeezed the juice which poured into wooden barrels. The rollers were set in motion by oxen power, as these patient beasts of burden plodded round and round in the beaten circle, keeping the juice running. Endless toil! Forever it seemed! There would never again be a time to sing, a time to shout, or a time to frolic and dance till the break of dawn!

The Southerners could barely feed themselves, let alone assume the burden of their ex-slaves, and the North did not want them! So they became, and have been to this day, a people dependent upon the friendship and help of their white friends, because they are not yet able to cope with this thing called “civilization,” as a race, as civilization is a thing new and strange to their natural instincts, so they plod, as oxen to the mill, patient and enduring, and for this faithfulness they are being rewarded here in the South, as the people are forgetting how short the time has been since these people, nameless, whose parentage was as varied and uncertain as that of the beasts of the forests, whose ancestors boiled and ate their sons, came to America. And are permitting them to establish themselves, as they are fitted, as individuals, in positions of trust and responsibility.

The negro race in the South fully understands the attitude of their friends, and are encouraged by the increasing respect that is being shown them and are making an earnest endeavor to measure up to the standards of an enlightened people, but as a people of pure race.

They understand perfectly that there must be two races, a black and a white, for a mixed race will always be a people without “place.”

Captain Newton Knight foresaw this in the year 1884, when he made the most sensational sacrifice in history, in a vain effort to eradicate a mixed-blooded race in Jones County!

* * * *

Men who had been in the company of Knight joined the Ku Klux Klan, which shows that their purpose in fighting against the Confederacy was not for emancipation of slavery. However, the purpose of the Klan organization was not altogether a plan to control the negro, but was for a means of combating other anti-Southern activity.

A white man was not exempt because he was a white man, if he had a beating coming to him, and here in Jones County, the negro problem was really no problem at all, as he has always been the scapegoat for some wicked white man.

There is no man that has not some good mixed in with the bad, and it cannot be said that Newt Knight was altogether bad.

Although he was radical in his viewpoint, he still held on to a few of the principles instilled by his progenitors, for on occasion he exhibited chivalry expected of a Southern gentleman.

After he became so unpopular in Ellisville, after he had suffered the indignity of Rachel’s trial and was occupying the position of a social outcast, he performed an act of chivalry that should, in all fairness, be mentioned here:

The carpetbaggers had imported some strange negroes into Jones County to propagate the “Freedman’s Bureau” and the “Loyal League,” and of these, a tool was made, to test the attitude of the white population, as the North, even at that early period, advocated social equality and attempted to inflict preposterous insult upon a helpless and injured people.

Before the Ku Klux Klan could take the situation in hand, many atrocities had been committed.

These imports were dressed in the finest of clothes, and they preened and paraded like peacocks on the street. Of course, the citizens understood what it was all about and ignored the act. But one big African refused to be ignored. He paraded and strutted in his fine black mohair suit, a silk waistcoat, from which dangled an enormous gold watch-chain. He doffed his high silk hat to the ladies as they passed, but they looked straight ahead, and paid no more attention than if he had been a post standing there.

So finally, he mounted the steps and loitered about the door of McManus’s store until a lady shopper came out with her child in her arms and also carrying a bundle.

Then the black stepped forward and planted his foot firmly on the hem of her skirt (the style had changed from the hoop to a full flounce, with a dip, suggesting a train in back). The skirt swept the floor of the platform, as the lady had no free hand to gently lift it clear, and seeing this, he stood there, like a statue.

“Will you step off my dress, please?” she asked.

The black did not answer, and neither did he move. He pretended to be unaware of the fact that he was hindering her progress.

She raised her voice, and demanded, “Get off my dress!”

Again, he ignored her and looked in the opposite direction, as if intently engrossed with something across the street. He did not move.

Just as the distressed lady was about to cry out for help, there was a sudden commotion, as Newt Knight darted like a flash, from out of space it appeared, and landed squarely behind the negro on the platform.

Before he had time to move, Newt let him have a mighty wallop with his fist, on which he wore a pair of brass knux (knuckles) to the base of his skull, which was enough to have killed a white man. The negro landed, unconscious, in the middle of the dusty street, his bloody face plowing into the ground.

The lady did not have a chance to express her gratitude; the Captain was gone, suddenly and unseen, as he had come. But this lady of the gentry passed the word around that her hero was the man who was regarded as “a negro lover” and the most contemptible man in Mississippi!

Born out of this incident was a new respect for Newt Knight. Perhaps that one gallant act kept him from being tarred and feathered by the Ku Klux Klan, for that deed alone shed light on how he stood on the “negro rule.”

At that time our state government was practically run by negroes, placed there by the carpetbaggers and dishonest politicians bent on holding the South in ruin and disgrace.

Newt Knight was by no means the “lowest” man in Mississippi, for during the Ames Administration, we had nine negro senators, fifty-five negro members of the House, our lieutenant governor was a negro, our state superintendent of education, and the secretary of state, the commissioners of agriculture and immigration, were all negroes, having been elevated to these various offices by shrewd and unscrupulous white men who were behind the Freedman’s Bureau and the Loyal League. Most of these negro officials could not even read and write, and the affairs drifted into a deplorable state and remained so until after Governor Stone became Mississippi’s highest executive.

Then these organizations were curbed, and gradually the state started the snail pace of progress out from under her yoke of oppression.

It was in disillusionment and humility that the negroes turned to their former white friends for comfort and help.

Esther Barnes was a slave woman who was freed with her brood of hungry children, and her descendants say that she and her family would have perished from starvation had not her ex-master divided his scarce bread with them. That is just one case. It happened all over the South.

Earlier than most ex-slaves, Rachel realized that her only hope, now that her master and mistress were dead, and she was free, would be to find one member of the Old Family who would accept her and hers as hands on a farm. But she knew that they all hated her for having befriended the deserters, and she knew that in their hearts, they could have no love for her, because she had refused to be disciplined and had become a strumpet.

Finally, she decided to take her children and try to locate with Newt, as a share-cropper on his land, up near Salsbattery, where he had returned to make his home. And it was he who took her in.

It was agreeable with Newt’s wife to have a woman to help with the household tasks, the washing and the ironing, and the cooking. And Rachel was well trained, having learned much from the aristocratic Georgia family to whom she had belonged before she came to the old Knight household, where she learned much more. And she was polite and respectful.

But Serena was unaware of what went on with Rachel and the army under Newt. Had she known, she would never have consented to Rachel’s moving in to become a tenant.

Serena Knight reared her children well, prepared a good table, and with the exception of that little affair with Morgan, had always been true to her husband.

Newt forgave her for that, and she, in turn, forgave him for all the deeds that he had done, deeds that would have wrung the hearts of most women.

Now that the tide was slowly turning, and her husband was at home, little things kept coming up that irked Serena, things small and of no consequence.

For instance, Rachel was stealing the affections of her children by little courtesies, sweet talk, and favors of every kind, and they were staying around Rachel’s house more than their mother liked.

Newt had a fondness for apples, and a fondness for planting apple trees. They grew, not only in a well laid out orchard, but in every conceivable spot. As shade trees, ornamenting the yards of his tenants, and in the fence corners. The hills were fragrant with apple blossom in spring, and with the fruit in autumn.

Near Rachel’s house, which was a full quarter of a mile from his own residence, there grew a big gnarled apple tree, which he had planted there before the war. Its age seemed to lend enchantment to its beauty in blossom time, and its shade was most appreciated in summer.

Under this tree was a rustic bench, and it was here that the “hair dressin’” of Rachel’s family took place, during the long summer months.

Rosette and Rachel decided that they would also wrap the hair of Serena’s children.

The children, unwilling to protest any demand of Rachel, who had won them over and had them completely under her influence, submitted to the negro hair fashion. To them, it was a big joke.

But when they returned home with their blond hair twisted up in unsightly wrapped tufts, tied with many colored string, it was the last straw with their mother!

“Why, that hussy is trying to make negroes out of our children!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, I guess it was all done in play,” answered Newt.

But Serena disregarded his opinion and rushed down upon Rachel and angrily ordered her to let that be the last time.

Serena’s anger only encouraged Rachel, as she was filled with a streak of maliciousness, and as she knew that she could always “square” Newt, there was no reason why she should not enjoy tormenting his wife.

The hair wrapping continued, every time the children played near Rachel’s house, and with it, the unhappiness in Newt’s house grew.

Then tragedy drew the family closer. One of the twins was burned to death, a horrible death, and as it was the first occurrence among their children, it hurt deeply.

High up on the hill above Newt’s house was an old cemetery, forlorn and unattended. Here were the graves of the people who were drowned when their oxen had leaped off the ferry into the raging waters of Leaf, as they attempted to cross during flood stage.

The people were on their way to visit the Daniels who lived up there before Newt, possibly kin, so their five bodies were taken from the river and carried on up to their destination, where they were buried side by side, in a row.

In this cemetery were the graves of two of Newt’s ex-guerrillas, who had been hanged nearby.

A few feet away from the graves of the deserters, were the graves of six Confederate soldiers who had been killed in a battle which had occurred at Newt’s old barn.

Little Billie was laid to rest here beside this strange assortment of dead. And Newt’s family walked back to their home in sadness.

After that Rachel was kinder and tried to lighten the burden of her landlady.

All was forgiven, and Serena was convinced that she had been mistaken about Rachel and repented her accusations. Peace and harmony existed between the two families, and the past was forgotten.