The State of Jones
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The grandson of a wealthy Mississippi slave-owner, Newton Knight was an abolitionist and two-time rebel deserter who actively fought against the Confederacy, and bore a large family with a former slave. His home, Jones County, Miss., saw great hardship during the Civil War; Confederate taxes ""pushed small farm families, who provided the rank and file foot soldiers, to the brink of destitution."" Jenkins (The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation) and Stauffer (Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln) employ painstaking research into Knight and Jones County, resulting in an engaging and original portrait of life inside the Confederacy. Knight's Scouts, formed after Vicksburg set off a wave of rebel desertions, carried out their own justice in Jones County, using clever techniques for communication, intimidation and warfare against the home team (""the sorts of exploits"" that Sherman would appreciate). Knight's post-war efforts for equality included building an integrated school; when residents objected to his own mixed-race children attending, however, Knight burned it to the ground. Spanning more than 100 years, this family story brings home the lasting effects of hate and fear, love and acceptance, as well as the strides that have brought us to where we are.
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It took me a long time to finish this.
I am a minor civil war buff. I couldn't get into this book. The pacing is slow.
The story is interesting, but the narrative prose gives the same information later quoted in a primary source.
Notably, I didn't give up on the book. It was worth reading and have a reminder about the history of white supremacy that continues today, the atrocities and the white washing, the post-war selling out of the poor south and the Lost Cause.
I actually started this book in high school after seeing the author come on the daily show with Jon Stewart. At that time civil war history didn't interest me like it does now. A shame because I wish I had started this book fresh in the present. I finished up the last third today which I could have done them but I must have thought it dull.
Interesting that the author notes the screenplay for this book came first and only then did they develop this into a book. That's very cool.
The bit of reconstruction was the best part. Every time I read about how bad this era was it really captures the damage that was done when Lincoln was assassinated.
Andrew Jackson probably the worst president ever set back the country for centuries by allowing the democrats to run wild over the south.
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