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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1981 The eP rcys of Mississippi: Politics and Literature in the New South. Lewis Turner Baker Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Baker, Lewis Turner, "The eP rcys of Mississippi: Politics and Literature in the New South." (1981). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3668. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3668 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. /' INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. University Microfilms International 300 N. ZEEB RD., ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8207807 Baker, Lewis Turner THE PERCYS OF MISSISSIPPI: POLITICS AND LITERATURE IN THE NEW SOUTH The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col.Ph.D. 1981 University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M I 48106 Copyright 1982 by Baker, Lewis T urner All Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE PERCYS OF MISSISSIPPI: POLITICS AND LITERATURE IN THE NEW SOOTH A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Lewis Turner Baker B.A., University of Texas, 1975 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1977 December, 1981 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OP CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE............................................................ i ABSTRACT............................................................... iii CHAPTERS I. THE PERCYS ARRIVE.......................................... 1 II. LEROY PERCY................................................... 18 III. THE SENATE ................................................... 55 IV. WILL PERCY ................................................... 88 V. THE GREAT WAR................................................ 107 VI. THE K L A N .................................................... 138 VII. RECONSTRUCTION..............................................166 VIII. THE LAST FLOOD ..............................................192 IX. UNCLE WILL'S GARDEN......................................... 224 X. PLANTERS, GARDENERS AND SUCH ............................... 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................... 315 VITA................................................................... 323 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This study of the Percy Family focuses primarily on the lives of LeRoy and William Alexander Percy, and secondarily on the lives of Colonel William Alexander Percy and Walker Percy. Other members of the family are also discussed briefly. Introductory material covers the arrival of the Percys in the New World, their removal to Alabama, and the career of Colonel William Alexander Percy of Greenville, Mississippi. Chapters two and three cover LeRoy Percy's early career and his election to and tenure in the United States Senate. Chapter four introduces his son William Alexander Percy. Chapters five through eight treat both LeRoy and William Alexander, focusing on their roles in the Great War, the fight against the Ku Klux Rian in Greenville, the flood of 1927, and William Alexander's literary career. Chapter nine describes the final years of William Alexander's life. The final chapter describes recurring themes in the family's history and their relationship to the life and literature of Walker Percy. 1 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Is The Percys Arrive The great grandfather knew what was what and said so and acted accordingly and did not care what anyone thought. Walker Percy Those days you had to be a hero or a villain or a weakling - you couldn't be just middling ordinary. Will Percy Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 Charles Percy came to the Spanish territory south of Natchez in 1776. He had left behind two wives, one in his native England, the other in the Bahamas, where he had sojourned only long enough to gather a cargo of slaves and a land grant from the Spanish government, in Mississippi he married again to Susanna Collins, who settled him down and bore him six children. Their domestic peace was threatened when Margaret, Charles's English wife, showed up claiming the right of inheritance for Robert, her son by Charles, but a settlement was agreed upon and friendly relations established between Charles's two families. After Margaret's death, Robert accepted Susanna as a stepmother and settled nearby. Meanwhile Charles amassed a fortune growing indigo, and the Spanish, who called him Don Carlos, made him an Arcalde, a magistrate, in the local government. But life in the new world was hard even for successful men like Don Carlos. His own ill health was worsened by the deaths of two of his three sons in childhood, when France declared war on Spain in 1793 Natchez became liable to attack, adding an external threat to the anxiety Don Carlos already felt about some of his neighbors. Charles Percy discovered that he was not up to living the life of Don Carlos. He gathered several friends together to witness his will; ten nights later he made his way through the darkness to a remote spot in Percy Creek where the water deepened, tied a tin sugar kettle to his neck, and threw himself in.1 Of Charles's three American sons, only Thomas George survived ^ o h n Hereford Percy, The Percy Family of Mississippi and Louisiana (Baton Rouge, La. : By the Author, 517 North Street, 1943), 1-10, 48-53; William Alexander Percy, Lanterns on the Levee (New York, 1941), 39-40. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 childhood in the new world. A bookish young man, Thomas G. attended Princeton, where he became a close friend of John Walker of Alabama. After college Thomas G. settled next door to Walker on a plantation in Madison County and married Maria Pope, the sister of Walker's wife Matilda. Thomas G. was quite content to live the life of a gentleman planter. While Walker pursued a career as a Senator, Thomas G. stayed at home tending his garden and accumulating a massive library. He did enjoy travelling, but unlike his father, Thomas G. took his wife and family with him, and wherever he went he enjoyed himself immensely. Prom New York he wrote to Walker: "We have walked up and down Broadway & eke upon the battery & that many times & among crowds of well dress'd people, & been pretty well dress'd ourselves." Aside from books and nature, the only thing Thomas G. took even half seriously was children; he described the birth of one of his sons as "the sudden appearance of a gentleman who though of Liliputian [sic] dimensions is thought to be of some consequence by certain people." He saw to it that his sons learned a profession

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