Book excerpt: In 1886, Maj. John Knight Jr.a White plantation owner, attorney, and decorated Confederate Civil War veteransummoned five witnesses to his deathbed. There, he did something extraordinary: He bequeathed his estate to his former slaves.What followed is an incredible true-life story of courage, love, epic legal battles, and one remarkable turnabout: only years after being in bondage, Knights former slaves and their descendants entered the plantation house as masters of their domainand their future.Meticulously researched, The Knight Family Legacy: One Familys Story, gives an eye-opening glimpse into the complex, often contradictory life story of Knight and those around hima world where the gray areas crowd out black and white. Marilyn R. Hill-Sutton traces the facts through court records, countless historical documents, numerous courthouse and cemetery visits, and endless interviews with family membersmany of which are reprinted here. The candid account that emerges reveals the Knight familys slave-owning history; Maj. Knights valor during the Civil War; the forbidden union between him and his mulatto slave, Violet Knight; his decision to leave the estate to Violet and their children; an unprecedented court battle for control of the Knight estate by heirs; and son Jacob C. Knights courageous efforts to ensure his fathers deathbed wishes were carried out. Ambitious in scope and far-reaching in conclusions, The Knight Family Legacy is a must-read for Civil War buffs, slavery, social, and cultural historians, genealogists and family history enthusiasts, and anyone with a genuine love for history and the implicit, although complex, and, often contradictory, human interactions of a foregone era.