Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer’s book “The State of Jones,” which details Newton Knight’s exploits in Jones County during the Civil War, has carried with a certain amount of controversy.

That controversy followed them to Jones County Junior College Thursday, where the two hosted a book talk and signing in the Fine Arts Auditorium.

J. Ronald Parrish, a Jones County assistant district attorney and avid history buff, was quick to raise his hand to debate the book’s claims. Parrish threw his hat in the ring after Stauffer, chair of American Civilization at Harvard University, said Victoria E. Bynum had refused to debate him.

Bynum, who wrote a similar book entitled, “The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War,” has given Stauffer’s book what he called “vicious criticism.”

“She called us Yankees and carpet baggers,” he said. “She said we wrote fiction and not history, which are serious and even libelous charges. We chose to write history that was well documented.”

Stauffer said Bynum, who he referred to as a gadfly, called their work “inferior to that of high school students.”

“A gadfly is an insect that bites the rumps of horses,” he said. “They stake his or her reputation on annoying or slandering others.”

Stauffer said Bynum challenges “The State of Jones” take that Knight, who he termed a Southern Unionist, never succeeded because Jones County never succeeded, and that he wasn’t at a key battle in Vicksburg.

“She said he (Knight) was no friend of blacks,” Stauffer noted, even though he pointed out throughout the talk how the Jones County native had helped slaves during and even after the war.

Parrish, who noted he was not looking to make a personal attack, said he “disagreed profusely” with Jenkins and Stauffer’s book.

“The winners of wars get to write the books and records,” Parrish said, referencing the fact that the book draws heavily on war records from Washington, D.C. “If I could get the records of the Third Reich, I could write a good book about (Hitler).”

Parrish implied that it was an irrelevant point that Knight, whose grandfather was a wealthy slave owner, did not have any slaves of his own.

“Seventy-five percent of soldiers in the Southern army didn’t own slaves,” he said. “Robert E. Lee didn’t own slaves and was not in favor of succession. There’s no need to spit on the graves of these men and women. Only a fool would feel they have to defend slavery in order to honor what they did.”

Parrish also called Knight a murderer, accusing him of breaking into the Deason House in Ellisville and shooting a local reverend in the back of the head.

Stauffer countered Parrish’s claims that Lee, in fact, did own slaves and discussed that in his letters. He said the research for the book was from Confederate war files, not just those from the Union.