Willy Knight

William "Willy" Knight (d. 1941) was Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the first Featherston Administration (served 1934-1939) and former chairman of the Redemption League party of the West. A very ambitious Texan politician, Knight had designs on becoming Confederate President until his party was overtaken by Jake Featherston's Freedom Party in the early 1920s. Often sidelined by Featherston, Knight was finally given the Vice President slot in the election of 1933, which he initially cherished. After taking office however, Knight realized the limited nature of the position generally, and resented the fact that the office became even more meaningless under Featherston's regime.

When the Confederate Constitution was amended in 1938 to allow presidents to run multiple times, Knight, a patriot above all else, finally comprehended Featherston's absolutist goals for the C.S., and was frightened into action. That December, Knight ordered stalwarts he'd co-opted to attack Featherston's motorcade with, but they failed to kill him. Knight's role in the attack was uncovered, and he was impeached and forced to resign in short order. He was immediately arrested and secretly dispatched to Camp Dependable in 1939 - being placed as the only white prisoner among hundreds of black rebels. Presumably, Ferdinand Koenig and Featherston assumed that they could neatly get rid of Knight by putting him at the mercy of militant blacks who hated whites in general, and senior Freedom Party officials in particular. However, rather than being killed by his black fellow-inmates, Knight won their grudging respect. After a long period in which Jefferson Pinkard repeatedly reported to Richmond that Knight was still alive, and that the black prisoners were showing no inclination to kill him, Knight was executed by Pinkard on Ferdinand Koenig's order in the fall of 1941.