Newton Knight: It ain't just for us. Black, white, rich, poor, it's for everybody.
Rachel: I don't want my boy to get lynched. Or beat. I want him to go to a school. I don't want him to drop his eyes every time a white man walk by. I don't want him to be a "boy" no more once he turn into a man.
Jasper Collins: You know they shoot deserters, don't you?
Newton Knight: Hell, they shoot everybody around here anyway. It don't seem to make no difference where the bullet comes from.
Newton Knight: These men are here to vote. They mind dying a whole lot less than you do.
Moses: Deserted. How come?
Newton Knight: It ain't my fight, you know? Don't own no slaves. Ain't gonna die so they can get rich selling cotton.
Moses: That's why we left, too.
Newton Knight: No man ought to tell another man what he's gotta live for or what he's got to die for.
Colonel Robert Lowry: They're poor farmers, deserters, who frankly, sir, don't have much to lose.
