Compare And Contrast Victim And Free State Of Jones

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While the popular image of the Confederacy, and indeed the Secessionist Southern States as a whole, are looked at as containing white populations uniformly supportive of the Confederate cause, the reality is more complex. As portrayed in Victims: A True Story of the Civil War and Free State of Jones there existed sizable pockets of dissent among the populace whom the Confederate government failed to convert to the cause. In places like the mountains of western North Carolina and southeastern Mississippi this led to desertion, passive resistance, and even outright armed rebellion which sapped Confederate resources that were needed to continue to fight the Union. Though this anti-Confederate feeling would often translate into support for the Union, this was not based on some inherent loyalty to the Federal government. As shown in Victims and Free State of Jones the disunity within the Confederacy stemmed from the failure of the Confederate government to get their non-slave holding lower classes to buy into the pro-slavery ideology of the nation, which was compounded by the lower classes bearing many of the harsh measures of the war including the draft and the …show more content…

The Confederate army in the region, led by Henry Heth, sent a detachment commanded by James Keith and Lawrence Allen to scour the Shelton Laurel Valley for the perpetrators. Keith and Allen would scour the valley for deserters, including torturing women and the elderly through hanging for information, and would capture thirteen men during the operation. The thirteen prisoners would be executed without trial under the orders of James Keith, something that would outrage not only among the besieged Unionists but the civilian government of North Carolina under Governor Zeb Vance as