Both of the pictures shown, here—the ruined ante-bellum plantation, the defiant young Confederates under their battle flag—speak volumes about the turbulent state of Mississippi, for both are a little fraudulent. Windsor plantation was built only in 1861, when the state was new-rich in cotton; Mississippi was opened up too late to have a true “Old South” tradition. The young men are students at “Ole Miss,” jeering at the idea of allowing a lone Negro named James Aleredith to enter this seat of learning in 1962. How did Mississippi get this way? How did it happen, as her present governor says, that “we helped build our own doghouse”? Some significant historical answers to these, questions are given in the following pages by Walter Lord, author of an excellent hour-by-hour account of the Aleredith case, The Past That Would Not Die, published this month by Harper & Row.

Splinters flew in every direction as the Union troops hacked away at the chairs and tables of Edward McGchce, a wealthy cotton planter in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. It was October 5, 1864, and Colonel E. D. Osband’s men were simply acting on the philosophy expressed by General Sherman when he told a group of protesting Mississippians, “It is our duty to destroy, not build up; therefore do not look to us to help you.”

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