[The following is in regards to Newton Knight, a Confederate deserter in the American Civil War who returned to Jones County in Mississippi and fought a guerrilla war against the Confederacy.]
As Newton idled on the platform one afternoon, two men eyed him, and he overheard them talking. “That’s Newton Knight, let’s go get some more men and take him out and kill him,” one said. Certain they meant to return with a gang to waylay him, Newton hurriedly hid himself behind some cotton bales on the loading platform. When the train arrived he dashed out from behind the cotton and ran for the rail car like a hobo. Just when he leaped on the train, a half dozen men arrived to ambush him. As the train pulled away, he heard one of them say, “If we don’t catch him this trip we’ll get him on the return.”
Newton related the episode to Ames, who gave him a pistol and advised him to buy a new double-barrel while hew as in Jackson. Ames also suggested he trick his pursuers by getting a haircut and a shave. Newton did as Ames recommended: a barber cropped his long hair to his collar and removed his heavy whiskers, leaving just a mustache. The transformation in his appearance was startling. “When he stepped from the train at Newton with his new gun shining no one seemed to know him, neither did they ask any questions,” his son recounted. Newton was so altered that when he arrived at home, even “we children did not know him,” Tom wrote.
Source:
Jenkins, Sally, and John Stauffer. “Reconstruction and Redemption.” The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy. Anchor Books, 2010. 263. Print.
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