General Winfield Scott Hancock, whom Cass Edmonds mentions as part of his attempt to refute Ike's point that God "intended to save" the South (271), was a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac, and as Cass notes, "on Cemetery Ridge" at Gettysburg (272).
George Meade was given command of the Army of the Potomac just three days before the battle of Gettysburg, site of the charge by Pickett's confederate troops which proved to be a decisive defeat for the Confederate cause. Cass is referring to that defeat when he notes, somewhat obscurely, that Jeb Stuart and his cavalry troops were not at the battle, "when Lee should have known of all of Meade just where Hancock was on Cemetery Ridge" (272). Meade was in command of "Hancock" and his Union troops; Cemetery Ridge was the point at which Pickett's ill-fated charge was directed.
"Jeb" Stuart, Lee's cavalry commander during the Civil War, was a "gallant man" (272), often depicted as the most romantic of the War's officers, famed for leading his horsemen on various excursions and raids. The action Cass cites - "riding his whole command around the biggest single armed force this continent ever saw" (274) - happened during Lee's invasion of the North in 1863; Stuart's absence on this excursion contributed to the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg.
As the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln led the Union through the ordeal of the Civil War. He is mentioned by Cass when he refers to the triumphant but premature telegram that General Hooker sent "Lincoln" from Chancellorsville (272).
General 'Fighting Joe' Hooker briefly had command of the Union's Army of the Potomac. He is best known for leading a superior Union army to a resounding defeat at Lee's hands at the 1863 battle of Chancellorsville, when (as Cass Edmonds puts it) Stonewall Jackson's men "rolled up the flank which Hooker believed could not be turned" while Hooker himself was "drinking rum toddies and telegraphing Lincoln that he had defeated Lee" (272).
Thomas Jackson, who earned his nickname "Stonewall" at the first major battle of the Civil War, was a corps commander in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Ike refers to his 1862 actions "in the [Shenandoah] Valley" (274), when he successfully thwarted three Union armies with three times his own forces, usually considered one of the war's most brilliant campaigns. Cass refers to Jackson's death at the 1863 battle of Chancellorsville, when shortly after leading the surprise attack that devastated the Union army he was accidentally and fatally shot by his own men.
Faulkner (or Cass) invents this "Yankee Intelligence officer" who finds Lee's "battle-order . . . on the floor of a saloon" (272). (The losing and finding of Lee's order actually happened during the Civil War, but in fact it was found by a Union corporal lying in the grass.)
General Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. The novel's account of how his plans fell into the Union army's hand before the 1862 battle of Antietam (called "Sharpsburg" in the South, 272) is based on a true incident.
Turner Ashby led a cavalry brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia. The historical event Cass refers to - how "by chance" Turner Ashby lost and the Union army found "Lee's battle-order" for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion of the North in 1862 - is a famous piece of Civil War history; the order itself, Special Order 191, is often referred to as the 'Lost Dispatch' or the 'Lost Order' (272).
