Posted on 06/27/2016 4:38:13 PM PDT by ZinGirl
shameless ping :) forgive if not appropriate.
I saw a poster of it when I went to see another movie and did some Googling. Turns out this was a true story and was surprised that it happened. I'm a huge Civil War buff and I still didn't know about this.
I am a history buff but had not heard of this story until the movie was being released. There was a good article about it, in Smithsonian Magazine, IIRC.
Yep - Jones County Mississippi.
How “PC” was it? I was surprised that i had never heard the original history either and looked it up but I got whiffs from the storyline that they had tried to twist the story to suit current memes.
Movie is Hollywood fiction. It’s about a deserter who should have been shot. He was no hero. He also didn’t have a valid marriage to a former slave, as interracial marriages were against the law in the 19th Century. There’s a lot of Southern heroes to make a movie about. This deserter was not one of them.
Not PC, IMHO. just factual. In fact, Gary Ross intersperses several real Civil War pix. In the scene where the Negros "vote" (there were 23 Republican votes... between Black/White...the official count for Republicans was 2)
I saw it advertised a few times but there is no way I am going to watch it.
The History Channel has gotten really PC in the last few years. When I say PC I mean they make stuff up.
If you’re a Civil War buff at all, I think you would like it very much. Gary Ross went through great effort to make sure all details were accurate...including some of the “not so nice” stuff.
Blacks guilt makes more sense than white guilt:
“One study concluded that 28 percent of free blacks owned slaves, which is a far higher percentage than that of free whites who owned slaves.”
https://www.vice.com/read/hey-v12n5
He was not just "a deserter". Also, just because he didn't have a "valid marriage" is part of the point.
In any case, the fact that very few people will GO to this movie is a testimony, IMHO, that it is not a "Hollywood" movie.
Was wondering about this film. Knew a little about the history, but never really deep into the story.
Good to see it isnt some weird politically slanted production.
I’m a buff my friends are buffs and none n 9f us ever heard of this. I’m dubious.
You might want to read the reviews of Rudy Leverett’s University Press of Mississippi book ‘The Legend of the Free State of Jones’ to get another view of the ‘Legend’
https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Free-State-Jones-Leverett/dp/1604735716
an example:
Dr. Leverett was the first to publish a scholarly book documenting the history of Jones County, Mississippi before and during the American Civil War. In Legend of the Free State of Jones, Dr. Leverett showed conclusively that Jones County never seceded from the Confederacy and, moreover, that its residents remained loyal to the Confederacy during and after the Civil War. It is true, Leverett explains, that most Jones Countians opposed the political stance of Southern secession from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. The reason? “. . . Jones County was not part of the Old South of manor houses, river boats, privileged gentry and gracious living. On the other hand, the lives of the people in Jones County were probably far more typical of those of the ordinary Southerner of the times than were those of the plantation artistocrats. And, of course, it was the latter and not the former that went with the winds of the Civil War.” Legend at pp. 45-46.
Once invasion by the North seemed imminent, however, residents overwhelmingly aligned themselves with the Confederacy in opposition to the North.
Emblematic of the nuanced views of Jones County residents was Amos McLemore, a school teacher, Methodist-Episcopal minister and merchant whose Southern roots reached back into history nearly two hundred years. Like most of his fellow Jones Countians, McLemore opposed Southern secession from the Union in the months preceding the Civil War — this despite the fact that his business partner supported Southern secession. Nevertheless when war became a foregone conclusion, McLemore raised and commanded a company in the Confederate army, the Rosin Heels.
Major McLemore was later murdered by Confederate deserter Newt Knight, the purported leader of the alleged “Republic of Jones” of legend. McLemore had been temporarily dispatched back to Jones County from the front in order to round up deserters. Having learned of McLemore’s mission, Knight shot McLemore in the back as McLemore and others sat around fireplace at the home of State Representative Amos Deason in Ellisville. Leverett’s book presents evidence that, contrary to legend, Knight was in fact little more than an opportunist and criminal who likely volunteered for the Confederacy, then later deserted.
It was originally slated to be released in March...then May...eventually June. Probs the uphill battle.
I saw the film and some parts of it were very good, but it was very disjointed and didn’t ultimately make for a very compelling movie. They tried to cover too much ground. It probably should have been a mini-series.
One must decide whether one wants to trust the "government" all the time.
We certainly know your view point
It was a true story and the movie presented it fairly
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