It’s nice to meet you again here on Renegade South! How well I remember that evening at Raleigh’s Museum of History; I had a wonderful time. (It was more than “several” years ago, I’m afraid.)

Congratulations on your new book! I certainly need to read it, and I’m sure many of this blog’s readers will want to as well.

As for subscribing to my blog, I think it’s pretty easy. Just scroll down to the white box framed in blue that always appears on the right side of Renegade South’s opening page. Click “follow my blog,” and follow any instructions that may follow.

Vikki

Vikki

Having read some of your writings I’ll acknowledge your claim to extensive knowledge of the Collins family. However, in reading your post I am reminded that “extensive” should never be confused with “total” or “infallible.” Your emotional charges, at least as regards the Jones County, MS member of the Collins family, are simply at strong variance with easily verified historical records.

1) “the Collins family never owned slaves”: I am descended from one of Stacy Collins’s daughters: Sarah Collins Walters Parker. In 1854, following the death of her husband George W. Walters and three of her children, Sarah married a slave owner named James Parker, but left him shortly thereafter. The 1860 slave schedule (Jones County) shows her as the owner of a female slave. Other information suggests that she purchased a male slave soon thereafter. Despite this, Sarah is reported to have provided shelter to members of the renegade Newt Knight Band which, after all, contained two of her brothers and several nephews.

2) “They were loyal to the Confederacy”: Jasper Collins deserted from the 7th Battn MS in Oct 1862 due to his anger over the passage of the 20 slave law, which granted slave owners one military exemption per 20 slaves owned. He joined the Newt Knight Band, as did his brother Simeon and several of Simeon’s sons. This was documented by Newt Knight’s son Thomas, by Ethel Knight in “Echo of the Black Horn,” and by Jasper’s own testimony when called as a witness in Newt Knight’s 1895 attempt to receive a Union pension (Q. “If you belonged to any other organization in time of the war state what it was and what position you held if any.” A. “I belonged to what was called Newton Knight’s Company and was recognized as 1st sergeant of the Company.”)

Shortly before his death in 1913, “The Jones County News” interviewed Jasper and reported:

“Mr. Collins says he served six months in the army, when he was glad to get out, being strongly opposed to the war, and when a bill was passed by the Confederate Congress letting every man with 20 negroes go home, a number of them decided to fight no longer to keep the blacks as slaves. They decided it was a rich man’s war, and a poor man’s fight, and thought that those who wonted (sic) slaves should remain at the front, and not come home and make the fellow who never owned negroes battle to keep them slaves.”

Jasper’s brother Riley James Collins went to New Orleans and enlisted in the Union 1st New Orleans on 30 Apr 1864. He died four months later and is buried in Chalmette National Cemetery. His six orphan children were raised by his older brother Vinson (the MS one).

I could go on but it would seem to serve no purpose if your research is selective and your motives ideological rather than historical. My own genealogical research into the Collins family was done without any preconceived notations about heritage or values that needed protection. It would certainly have been more politically correct if my ancestor Sarah had not been the single Collins sibling to be a slave owner. But in my mind history is about following the facts where ever they lead. And I don’t think two individuals as strong, independent, and forthright as Jasper and Sarah Collins would have wanted it any other way.

Ed Payne
Great-great-great grandson of Sarah Collins Walters Parker

Thanks for posting your opinions. I agree with several of the facts you’ve stated and disagree with others. As for your statements that, 1) the Collinses (I refer here to Simeon and sons, Warren, Jasper, Riley, Stacy Jr., and Newton Carroll) were “loyal to the Confederacy,” and that, 2) Warren J. Collins “did not dabble in politics”–the facts clearly show otherwise. The Collins’s Civil War records are documented in my book, Free State of Jones; Warren’s political activities are documented in my book, Long Shadow of the Civil War.

Vikki Bynum

To my knowledge, which is extensive, the Collins Family never owned slaves … or particularly cared about those who did. They were loyal to the Confederacy; a situation which was accepted and admired by their Jones, County, Mississippi neighbors. They had a very large family of seven sons.

One son, Warren and his father, Stacy immigrated to Texas after the War. They remained poor and did not dabble in politics or social issues.

Warren’s son, V.A. Collins was nicknamed “Yank” because only “Yankee boys” could be so plump, healthy and rosy cheeked that he couldn’t be a Southern kid.

V.A. learned to read and write at age 19 subsequent to running away from home as a result of a dispute with his father, Warren, over a couple of hogs.

V.A. worked at night and attended a one room school house during the day with children from Minneola, TX. His teacher inspired him to become a teacher himself after two years of “learning”.

V.A. studied law, became a Senator and was Chairman of the Texas Educational Commission for the next 40 years.

His son, Carr became one of the wealthiest men in Texas. He personally led the effort to intergrated Dallas, built the first Negro housing development [in Richardson, TX the wealthiest suburb of Dallas]. Carr served on the Board of Trustees of Bishop College in Marshall, Texas. He donated all the land and many buildings for a Bishop College Campus and moved them to Dallas.

Carr’s father-in-law was a disabled Confederate Veteran who HATED Yankees and wouldn’t allow any into his home … ever! Carr and his wife Ruth, as are all their descendants were always extremely proud of both their Confederate heritage AND the extensive work for peaceful intergration in Texas.

It’s absurd to think that any member of this family ran away from it’s heritage or compromised the values of themselves or their ancestors.

The members of the Collins family have many, many Confederate ancestors.

To say otherwise is just so much Yankee claptrap.

Thanks so much for the insightful–and educational–follow up. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: I learn more about the Civil War from you in a couple of paragraphs, than I do in reading entire books, in many cases. That reveals quite a grasp of the subject matter, on your part, and a true gift for teaching. Hope you are happy in your new home, and that you continue to blog. Sherree

Your point about the federal government’s policies and war against the Plains Indians following the Civil War is an important one. It is also important, as you show, to not turn history into a morality play where one side is gloriously righteous and the other side the epitomy of evil.

When we move away from a white hat–black hat version of the Civil War we can see that the powerful political/economic elites of both the North and the South struggled to advance their own interests. Whether slavery would be allowed to continue expanding was at the center of the conflicting economic interests that led to the Civil War.

Yet, while it’s true that the Republican party was not an abolitionist party, at the same time, slaves, free people of color, and abolitionists never quit pushing for the war to result in an end to slavery. And because emancipation proved an effective war measure, they finally achieved that goal.

However, if the Republican Party as a whole had supported freedom and racial equality, the Southern Democratic Party’s counter-revolution, which resulted in racial disfranchisement and segregation, would never have succeeded. But it did succeed, and instead of a democratic revolution, we had an all too familiar story of economic advancement taking precedence over human rights. Republicans and Democrats alike turned their eyes West and proceeded to dispossess Indians of their lands “for their own good.” The argument that Indians would be better civilized if they gave up their lands and cultural ways was, sadly, a dress rehearsal for U.S. policies toward Cuba and the Philippines in the wake of the Spanish American War of 1898.

Between 1890 and 1920, those who objected to the above political turn of events sometimes joined the Populist, Socialist, or Progressive parties. Others joined the Anti-Imperialist League. Most simply disagreed with the major parties, publicly or privately. These dissenters were Northerners and Southerners, white, black, and multiracial. Some of them are the folks I write about in The Long Shadow of the Civil War.

Vikki