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.
One must decide whether one wants to trust the "government" all the time.
Another writer that discusses the south in frank and honest terms is Hewitt Clarke. He served as a intelligence officer in the Korean conflict and later. Writes of the area north of jones County a lot, Thunder over Meridian, Kemper, Bloody Kemper, The East End Tea Room, and He Saw The Elephant, a book about Lt Charles Read, a southern naval officer who found himself in unlikely battles more than once. Clarke has described the battles of the French/indian war, where the British and French used different Indian tribes to fight each other decades before the war for independence
Thank you. I heard that it was fiction, so that was no surprise.