Bayard Sartoris

Bayard Sartoris is the twelve-year-old narrator of "Ambuscade," though he is telling the story some years later (as other stories in the series and in The Unvanquished make clear). The only son of a prominent planter who has gone off to fight the Civil War as a Confederate Colonel, he admires his father extravagantly. At the time of this story, the hardships and realities of the Civil War have not yet hit home to him or his companion and slave, Ringo. The two boys' innocence and naivete are highlighted throughout the story, in small ways as well as large. The boys misunderstand what is meant by the fall of Vicksburg, for instance, and later, after overhearing Loosh talk about emancipation, both boys are fearful that General Sherman will set them "free." These comical failures to understand the reality of war reaches its head when they shoot at a "Yankee" and then believe, at first, that they killed him. Bayard Sartoris is a frequent character in other Faulkner texts, including the other stories in this series that were revised to form the novel The Unvanquished (1938). As "(Old) Bayard," he is a also major character in Flags in the Dust (1929).