I’m excited to announce that my new book, The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies, has been released! Click here to see its table of contents.
To purchase a copy directly from the University of North Carolina Press, click on the title, above. You may also order it from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.
To learn more about The Long Shadow of the Civil War, watch for my next post on Renegade South, which will feature my recent Question & Answer interview with the University of North Carolina Press.
Vikki Bynum
Renegade South 
YEA!!!! Can’t wait to read another book from the historian with the bestest and the mostest! Congratulations, Vikki.
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Thanks so much, Jon! I appreciate all your support and your own work on Mississippi, and I hope we finally get to meet in person this year.
Vikki
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Oh Lord! Now I have to buy another book! I’m only backed up about 50 or 75.
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Thanks Leroy–Maybe you’ll move my book up on your list!
Vikki
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‘The Long Shadow of the Civil War’. What a treat! But only if one enjoys great story telling……The subtitle of this book provides a big clue. ‘Southern dissent and it’s legacies”. And dissent they did. All the way into the 20th Century. Vikki is one great myth buster. Perhaps it has something to do with her willingness to pore over thousands of old documents and then sort out fact from fiction. Even a review of her bibliography makes for interesting reading.
Vikki is my kind of historian. A wordsmith who can also tell a great story. And yes, also a very sad story. Who can read any details about the Civil War and not be moved by the needless suffering and deaths that went on and on and on. Still, this is our collective American history. And regardless of age, we need to know these facts. Socialists in TX early 20th century? Who knew? Want enlightenment? This is the book to read!
A treat listening to Dr G and his Mud Cats as I type away on this blog.
Vikky Anders in San Diego
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Vikky, you’ve got to be the first person to finish the book since its release! Thanks so much for your ringing endorsement of the sort of history that I write. I’ve always found that the past, especially the kind preserved in court houses and basements, renders stories more surprising than fiction.
Vikki
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Vikki.
Just finished your book. Your storytelling is such a gift. I have read all of your books and I have a whole new view.
My great grandfather was Edmond Maclin DeVall, sheriff of Jones Co during the Civil War. It is so interesting to read about him thru your books.
My question: Is there a direction you can point me to that has all of the transcripts of the Newton Knight Claims “trials”?
Please keep up the research. I really read all the posts on this site and have learned a great deal about “the rest of the story”.
Cindy
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Cindy,
It’s great to receive a comment from an avid reader of the site, and a direct descendant of Jones County’s Civil War sheriff as well! I’m pleased that you enjoyed the new book.
Writing the chapter on Newt Knight’s thirty-year claims process was a real challenge as well as fascinating, and I hope other readers will also enjoy the complicated story it tells. The files are held at the National Archives in Washington DC, and are quite lengthy. If you go to my endnotes for that chapter, you will find the exact reference for them.
Thank you for reading Long Shadow of the Civil War (and my other works, too!) and for taking the time to post on Renegade South.
Vikki
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Just finished the UNC interview. If the book is just half as good as the interview, it will be more than worth the read. Can’t wait for the book!
Jon
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Thank you, Jon.
Vikki
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Dr. Bynum,
Congrats on your new book. I actually just learned about it at Kevin Levin’s blog, as I have been busy lately. I hope to get a copy soon and plan to review it on my blog. I ended up asking my father to review State of Jones, as I was “tainted” by knowing the goings on in the blogosphere and felt that I could not review it fairly. I am still waiting on him to finish it. Anyway, I hope things are going well for your blog and will try to stop in more. Best of luck with the new book and best wishes.
Daniel
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Thanks, Daniel, for your good wishes, and for stopping by Renegade South. I hope you like the new book, and I appreciate your willingness to review it on your blog, Civil War History.
Vikki
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Vikki,
I’m plowing through The Long Shadow of the Civil War for the third time. On page 33 you mention that Simeon Collins was captured near Kennesaw Mountain and sent as a POW to Camp Morton in Indianapolis, Indiana. Of the nearly 5000 prisoners sent to Camp Morton, at least 1616 died while incarcerated. They were originally buried at Greenlawn Cemetery which later became full and eventually closed. Having been zoned for industrial use, all non-military burials were removed by 1924. The War Department had the Confederate dead removed to Crown Hill Cemetery in 1931 where they were re-interred in a mass grave referred to as Confederate Mound. I did a search of “Collins” at Crown Hill and there is a memorial to Jacob Collins, Pvt, Co I, 3rd Inf, MS who died at Camp Morton on April 19, 1865. A cursory search on Ancestry.com turned up nothing. The last name is spelled “Colons” on the plaque at Confederate Mound in Crown Hill. A complete list of Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Morton, many from Mississippi, can be found at:
Click to access Confederate_Burials_Crown_Hill_RevIV.pdf
Additional information on Confederate Mound can be found at:
http://www.crownhill.org/cemetery/mound.html
and
http://crownhillhf.org/ConfederateMound.html
Crown Hill Cemetery is a short distance from where I live and a visit is on my list. There is also a memorial to the Confederate dead who died at Camp Morton located at Garfield Park in Indianapolis.
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Thanks, Chuck—that is some really good information! What a gruesome place Camp Morton was, a real death trap. Simeon managed to make it back to Jones/Jasper County after the war, but died within months of his release. I’ve always speculated that the wounds he received in Gen. Lowry’s raid on the Knight Band were at least partially responsible for his death.
The Jacob Collins reference is intriguing. While he wasn’t a member of Simeon’s immediate family—i.e., not a son of Stacy Collins—he may have been one of Stacy’s nephews. Jacob is a family name.
Good to hear from you after a lengthy break!
Vikki
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Talk about irony…Thomas S. Landrum, brother of my 3rd great grandfather, enlisted with the First Mobile Artillery MS in Jones County in 1861. By March 1864, he had enlisted in Company D, 1st New Orleans at Fort Pike. His first wife Sarah Ann Crosby, as well as three children, died in a smallpox epidemic in New Orleans in 1864. After the war Thomas married Martha Jane Johnson Britt, widow of Alfred M Britt, 7th Infantry Battalion, MS, who died while incarcerated at Camp Morton on August 20, 1863. After Thomas died in June, 1898, Martha Jane would go on to receive his pension until her death in March 1923.
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