The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Grumby is the leader of Grumby's Independents, a irregular group - or more accurately, a gang - that terrorizes the Mississippi countryside amid the chaos of the Civil War. Although Grumby carries a commission allegedly signed by General Nathan Bedford Forrest, he and his gang serve only themselves. Bayard, Ringo, and Uncle Buck pursue him to get vengeance for his murdering Granny in a horsetrading scheme gone bad.

Grumby's Independents, as they are called, are "about fifty or sixty" men who appeared in Yoknapatawpha after the withdrawal of Union troops (150). They claim to be not unlike the irregular Confederate fighters that Colonel Sartoris leads, but they actually serve only themselves and wage a campaign of terror across the north Mississippi countryside. Their number seems to get smaller and it is not clear how many others there are.

"One Negro in the county" was murdered and burned in his cabin by Grumby's Independents (149).

General Lee was the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The unnamed Union lieutenant mentions him when yelling at Rosa Millard, saying, "God help the North if Davis and Lee ever thought of the idea of forming a brigade of grandmothers . . ." (144).

Jefferson Davis was the only President of the Confederate States of America. The unnamed Union lieutenant mentions him when yelling at Rosa Millard, saying, "God help the North if Davis and Lee had ever thought of the idea of forming a brigade of grandmothers . . ." (144).

Apparently the last Union troops who appear in Yoknapatawpha during the War, this unit tracks Rosa Millard down to the Sartoris plantation to recover at least some of the dozens of stolen Yankee mules who remain in the county.

This unnamed Union officer berates Rosa Millard getting away with more Yankee mules. Later, looking "about forty and kind of mad and gleeful both at the same time" (140), he comes to the Sartoris plantation to reclaim some of the stolen animals and then, ironically, gives Rosa a voucher to cover the damage he men to the plantation in the process, while pleading with her not to use this new voucher as a means to continue her campaign against the Yankees.

The former pastor of the Episcopal Church that the Sartorises attend. Bayard recalls Doctor Worsham "in his stole beneath the altar" (135) but he does not directly appear in the novel. Like many white Yoknapatawphans, he is likely away at the War.

These Negroes are among the people in attendance at the secular service in the Episcopal Church when Rosa distributes money and mules to the needy people of Yoknapatawpha. In his narrative, Bayard indicates that at the beginning of the Civil War they were enslaved, but now, presumably because their former masters are gone because of the War, Bayard calls them "the dozen niggers that had got free by accident and didn't know what to do about it" (84). Along with Ringo, they sit in the church's "slave gallery," which was built to hold 200 slaves, but now is otherwise deserted.

These unnamed people, from various places and social ranks in the county, make up the white portion of the "congregation" that assembles in the Episcopal Church to hear Rosa confess her sins - her campaign of stealing from the Yankees - and to enjoy the fruits of those sins, the mules and money she disperses into the community.