The KGC in Villisca, Iowa and Facts About the Free State of Jones

The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society that sought to extend slave-holding territory through annexation.  Click (HERE) to read an article I wrote last year about a woman soldier who claimed to be a member of the organization.


One would think that the organization existed exclusively in the South due to the connection with slavery.  However, its membership purportedly reached every state in the North as well.  While scanning the Subversion Investigations, Case Files of  Levi Turner and Lafayette Baker on Fold3, I came across an interesting case regarding the KGC in Villisca, Iowa.  Yes, Villisca where the axe murders would take place in 1912.  When Mark and I visited the State Historical Museum in Des Moines a few years ago, they actually had the axe on display.  It was on loan at the time, and I'm not sure if it's still there. 

Photo by Mark Hidlebaugh

After the murders, suspects were rounded up, but nobody was ever convicted.  About 50 years prior, during the Civil War, folks were rounded up in Iowa then, too, but for different reasons.  

In 1862, Iowa was rife with tension considering several sons of prominent politicians in the state had enlisted in the Confederate army, one of whom was the son of a former governor.  This dissent and possible K.G.C. infiltration led U.S. Marshal H.M. Hoxie to arrest Iowans accused of disloyalty, which angered a lot of people who felt the arbitrary arrests, especially of prominent citizens, were unjustified.  According to the authors of two journal articles, the rumors of K.G.C. activity were just that...rumors and legend.  They painted Hoxie as a paranoid man who jumped at the mere mention of the secret organization, and that he used the K.G.C. to legitimize his arrests. The articles were from 1965 and 1975, and you can read them by clicking (HERE) and (HERE).  I don't agree that K.G.C. activity was all a figment of an oversensitive imagination.  Take a look at what John L. Patterson had to say about the secret organization in his area.  The 30-year-old served in the 23rd Iowa Infantry.  I have no idea why he would invent stories about the K.G.C. and dissent in general.  And yet neither author of those two articles even mentioned him.

Patterson submitted a statement to Hoxie claiming that the KGC was active in Villisca, that members had tried to coerce him to join their lodge in late July 1862, and even threatened him should he attempt to enlist in the Union Army, which he did anyway the following month.  Interestingly, Patterson noted that this group vowed to assist Southern troops should they enter the state of Iowa while refusing to fight to protect the abolitionist government.  They claimed they would die before being drafted.

Excerpt from Patterson Statement

Patterson said that the ones who tried to get him to join their lodge formed a company in Villisca with other men.  This was a year before the foundation of the Knight Company in Jones County, Mississippi.  He then went on to name 23 individuals involved with this company.  This prompted Marshal Hoxie to go on a reconnaissance mission in his state and relay his findings to Major Levi Turner, Judge Advocate, on February 10th, 1863.  He found that the K.G.C. had lodges within nearly every county in the state and that they pledged to "....resist the return of deserters, the execution of the federal tax law...and in all conceivable ways to retard the government in its efforts to crush the rebellion."  

Hoxie claimed that there were about 250 deserters in the state and executed an order to round them up

Excerpt from Hoxie letter to Turner, complete
with some pretty bad ink blots

If you didn't know any better, you'd think you had just read about the Free State of Jones, except that Hoxie had better luck than his counterpart, Major Amos McLemore of the 27th Mississippi Infantry who was ordered to round up deserters and recruit new soldiers in the Jones County area.  Yes, that was his name, and I can't recall if you learn it in the movie or not.  I do know that you didn't learn that he was a school teacher, Methodist minister, and merchant. He originally opposed secession, as did a majority of people in the area, but he nevertheless supported his state once Mississippi left the Union.  (Bynum, p. 102) Oh, and he wasn't shot in a church in a dramatic ambush.  McLemore was a guest at the home of state representative and friend Amos Deason when Knight infiltrated the house, which is located outside of Ellisville, and on October 5th, 1863, shot him as he was preparing for bed.  There are different versions about the incident.  Some claim Knight shot him inside the house.  Others say he shot him through a window.  Nevertheless, McLemore died, and his blood still stains the floor of the Deason home, which you can visit.  Click (HERE) for their Facebook page.  Oh, and it's supposedly haunted.  As an aside, McLemore's brother-in-law was also murdered by Confederate deserters.  (Bynum, p. 236, note 56.)  This is just a small sample of the violence that occurred in the southern part of the state.  I live about an hour-and-a-half south of Jones County, and while the circumstances were never as extreme here as what went on in Jones County, it was nevertheless a violent and scary place.

I'm confused as to who exactly was shot in the church anyway or what the writers were trying to convey in that scene in the movie.  I know the ambush was in retaliation to Confederate raids in the area.  There were several.  In March 1864, Colonel Henry Maury of the 15th Confederate Cavalry led  about 500 troopers out of Mobile and into Jones County in an effort to cleanse it.  Several members of the Knight Company were hung, and Maury reported that his raid was successful though some deserters continued to lurk in the swamps. His success was exaggerated.  And the following month,  Colonel Robert Lowery of the 6th Mississippi Infantry carried out another series of raids which resulted in more executions, including Newt's cousin, Ben.  This raid proved to be more successful.  Upon its conclusion, ten of Knight's band had been executed.  The ones who were captured and allowed to live either enlisted or rejoined Confederate units.  When it was all said and done, only 20 survivors remained, and they retreated deeper into the swamps.  I think the officer Newt killed in the church in the movie was supposed to be Lowery.  On the contrary, Lowery lived and went on to serve as governor.  Or maybe the character was a combination of McLemore and Lowery.  I don't know.  I was, and am, confused about the mess the movie made out of all of it. 

You often hear about the Lost Cause "myth."  Hollywood advances its own mythology steeped in political agendas. .

Here are some other inconsistencies or deletions from the movie (with references to Bynum's book upon which the movie is based)

1)  Newt's grandfather, Jackie, was one of the wealthiest planters in the Jones-Covington Counties area.  He owned 22 slaves, one of whom was Rachel, a convenient fact that Hollywood excluded.  That's how he met her, not some chance meeting.  Newt's father, Albert, owned at most one (p. 63, 78).   Upon Jackie's death, he bequeathed Rachel to his son, Jesse, Newt's uncle, who fathered children with her before Newt shacked up with her.  Jesse already had a wife and children.  When the war broke out, he enlisted in the 27th Mississippi Infantry and died of disease in 1863.  It seems Bynum doesn't mention in her book who owned Rachel at the outbreak of the war or that Jesse fathered children with her, but you can read it from her blog, which is (HERE). 

2)  I could find only brief mention of Serena going to Georgia during the war, and the source did not provide a citation.  So I am not sure if that even happened.  Or if it did, how long she was gone.  Serena remained with Newt until at least 1880 (p. 159).  And I can't believe she put up with his crap as long as she did.  Nevermind skin color, at the core, Newt carried on an adulterous affair, brought the other woman into their marriage and fathered children with her while simultaneously fathering children with Serena, his legitimate wife.  Newt set Rachel up in a house on his property.  She never supplanted Serena in their household, unlike what the movie depicts.  

To Newt, neither woman was worthy of his full devotion, loyalty, or heart. 

At the end of the day, Newt's use of women to satisfy his own carnal desires at will was not much different than what white planters did to their slaves.  True, Newt didn't own these black women.  But when he fathered children with them and his white wife, that bound all of them to him, creating a seemingly inescapable environment, at least for Serena.  And while these women never outwardly voiced their thoughts of their situation, I seriously doubt Serena especially enjoyed her life, leaving her to suffer in silence, much like a planter's wife.  Victorian women were to remain dutiful to their husbands at the expense of their own dignity and worth.  She definitely wasn't this pitiful creature, pleading for Newt to take her back as the movie depicted.

It seems the final straw came after 1889 when Rachel died.  It was at that point when Georgeanne took her place and  "...separated [Newt] from his wife." (p.159)  Georgeanne was the daughter of Rachel and an unknown white man.  Some believe that Newt even fathered children with her after Rachel's death or possibly even at the same time he was fathering children with Serena and Rachel.   Serena had finally had enough.  And by 1900, she had moved in with their daughter, Mollie, and Mollie's husband, Jeffrey.  Jeffrey was the son of Rachel and Newt's uncle, Jesse. (p.153)   

I don't think anybody knows for sure how many children Newt fathered with Rachel and Georgeanne.

3)  Newt originally enlisted in the 8th Mississippi Infantry in 1861.  He was discharged after serving only three months, more than likely because of his father's failing health.  (p. 99)

4)  Newt next enlisted in the 7th MS Battalion Infantry more than likely to avoid being conscripted.  He did not serve as a nurse or stretcher bearer.   He was, however, detailed as a provost guard.

I supposed Hollywood chose to detail him as a nurse/stretcher bearer in order show a more sympathetic and caring Newt Knight, which would endear him to the audience.  This is why you should seriously research what you see and read.  Emotions are strong.  Hollywood especially knows this.

As an aside, I had a relative named Eli Lee who served in this unit.

5)  There was a real Daniel Knight in the 7th MS Battalion Infantry, but he was Newt's uncle, not a kid.  Daniel was wounded at Corinth and then became a prisoner when Vicksburg capitulated. 

Was Newton Knight a hero or villain?  That's up to you to decide.  But please make sure you have all of the facts first, which you will not find in the movie.  And understand that the debate will continue to rage long after you think you've got it figured out.

Newt's idea of forming a company of dissidents was not a new concept as the formation of the Villisca company organized a year before Knight's shows.  Yet, the Iowans did not experience as much preeminence.  They weren't operating in a war zone.  The type of violence experienced by Southerners was far removed from Iowans who did not have to live in constant fear of both armies terrorizing their state.  The Villisca company just didn't have the support Knight did. They never acquired the strength to wrest power from local officials.  They also lacked the cover of dense swamps to protect them.  The North had more loyal men at their disposal to counter any dissent.  With such limited resources, the South had to direct all of its manpower to the battlefields. Furthermore, the combination of Federal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg invigorated the Union cause and quelled some of the grumbling in Iowa and elsewhere in the North, thereby diminishing the lure of an opposing organization. 

Yet, there seems to be similarities, too, with the Knight Company.  Namely, at the core, members of both groups vehemently opposed fighting for a cause for which they were not fully invested.  

The dissidence that appeared in Jones County wasn't an isolated phenomenon. Pockets of resistance to the Confederacy existed in several Southern states.  And, as the establishment of the Villisca company demonstrates, organized opposition to the government in power extended even to Northern soil.

Until next formation....rest.