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Doubleday
July 2009
On Sale: June 23, 2009
416 pages
ISBN: 0385525931
EAN: 9780385525930
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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 finest.
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