The poor whites who supported the nion may have been referred to as "backward", but they were closer to the original Revolution than city folks appearred to be and wanted to be left alone. See this site for an example:
http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/309/newton-knight-and-the-legend-of-the-free-state-of-jones And this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Knight And this one:
http://wigwags.wordpress.com/category/newton-knight/ Stan