The recalcitrant rebel guard stood before the locked door of the Confederate commissary and tax-in-king depot in Paulding, Mississippi. Newton had learned via the grapevine that the storehouse contained a huge mound of cornmeal intended for shipment to troops. Newton had ridden into Paulding with two hundred men and half a dozen ox-drawn wagons he commandeered from local farmers. But now the raid was faltering, because the guard refused to open the door, despite the shotgun.
”Open the door,” Newton said.
”I’ve got no orders to open the door,” the guard said.
”Bring me an ax,” Newton called to one of his men.
A Jones Scout hefted an ax out of a wagon and handed it to him. Newton stalked around to the side of the warehouse, lifted the blade, and stroked it into the side of the pine-timbered building with a crack. He pried it loose, then sank it once again into the pine, dislodging a chunk of wood.
The doorkeeper hollered out, “Don’t do that, Captain Knight! I will open the door for you.”
Newton replied, “I asked you to open the door but you said you had no order to open up, so you need not bother yourself. I will soon have a door open around here.”
Newton hacked at the wall until he had cut a hole in teh building large enough to walk through standing up.
Source:
Jenkins, Sally, and John Stauffer. “The Third Front.” The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy. Anchor Books, 2010. 176-77. Print.
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