By "Armstead" (190) Faulkner certainly means Lewis Armistead, a Confederate general commanding one of the brigades in Pickett's division that led the famous charge against the Yankee army on the last day of the battle of Gettysburg. Armistead along with some of his unit advanced further in that attack than any other rebels; he was mortally wounded just as he reached the stone wall that marked the Union lines.
General Kemper's brigade was part of Confederate division that led Pickett's Charge on the last day of the battle of Gettysburg. He was seriously wounded during the attack, and carried the bullet that struck him for the rest of his life.
The "Garnett" that Gavin mentions in his nostalgic reference to the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg is General Richard Garnett, whose Confederate brigade led Pickett's disastrous charge against the center of the Union lines (190). He was trying to compensate for a stain on his military record when, feverish and injured, he insisted on leading his men from the front, on horseback. He was killed just before reaching the enemy lines.
During the Civil War, James Longstreet was one of the Confederacy's best generals. As the commander of Lee's First Corps, it was his reluctant duty to give the command that launched Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg - a reluctance that is suggested by the novel's phrase "waiting for Longstreet to give the word" when it refers to that "July afternoon in 1863" (190).
Born into an old Virginia family, General George Pickett was 38 years old when, as a division commander in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, he led the bloody charge on the last day of the battle of Gettysburg in which thousands of Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. According to Gavin Stevens, "every Southern boy" can conjure up the moment before the charge began and it still was possible for the South to win the war (190). The "Pickett" Gavin evokes is a romantic figure, "with his long oiled ringlets" and his sword (190).
Much of the white population of Yoknapatawpha is of Scottish descent, including Chick Mallison (98). One of Gavin Stevens' quasi-racial theories is that the people of Beat Four, "the Gowries and Ingrums and Workitts" (28), settled in the hills of northeastern Yoknapatawpha because the landscape reminded them of their origins in "the Scottish highlands" (145).
A fictional town or city in Mississippi, sixty miles from Jefferson and clearly larger, where the District Attorney and the district Judge who try criminal cases in Yoknapatawpha are headquartered.
The fictional towns of Glasgow and Hollymount are located in the county that lies just east of Yoknapatawpha. In Chick's fantasy of her roundabout journey from the Square to her house, we learn that the name of the county is Crossman (184). Lucas speculates that Crawford Gowrie is selling the stolen lumber to Jake Montgomery in one or the other of the two towns (61). Montgomery's father has a farm "over beyond Glasgow" (113). Hollymount is mentioned again in connection with the Sheriff's plan to catch Crawford (216).
Gettysburg is the site of the largest battle ever fought on American soil, between Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, commanded at that time by George Meade. During its three days of fighting, July 1-3, 1863, almost fifty thousand men were killed, wounded or captured.
Memphis is the closest city to Jefferson - about 75 miles away. Famed for its nightlife, it often figures in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fictions as the place where the males of the county go to misbehave: in this novel, it's mentioned as one of the places where the men who hang around in the barbershop and pool hall during the week go "on weekends" to spend their money in brothels (42).
