[The following is in regards to a member of Newton Knight’s Jones Scouts, a large group of anti-Confederate guerrillas that fought against the Confederacy in southern Mississippi.]
Also wounded in the firefight was Newton’s corporal, S. G. “Sam” Owens, grandson of a legendary backwoods bare-knuckle brawler named Tom Sullivan. Owens was shot in the knee and the hip and only escaped capture by going limp and feigning his own death. The [Confederate] cavalry left him in the field, where Knight’s men found him when they crept back from the thickets. They made a litter and carried him two miles to his mother’s home and hid him in her loft. For weeks Owens lay in the attic convalescing, hidden behind a large trunk and peering through a small window to see what was going on outside. Owens’s presence was a secret to everyone but his close family. When he was healed and able to move about, the sound of rustling and humming in the attic frightened a local slave, who took the sounds to be that of a ghost.
Source:
Jenkins, Sally, and John Stauffer. “Banners Raised and Lowered.” The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy. Anchor Books, 2010. 224. Print.
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