The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Born into a very poor family, Forrest became a planter and slave trader. During the Civil War he served in the western theater and rose from Private to Lieutenant General. In "Vendee" his name as a Confederate officer is on the authorization that Grumby carries in his pocket, but like the similar order that Rosa Millard had when she was killed, that "paper" is probably a forgery (113).

The gang that rides with Grumby takes advantage of the lawless conditions in the region during the later years of the Civil War to pillage, terrorize and murder, without regard to race or gender, the civilians who have remained at home while the white male population is off at the fighting. Two of them - Bowden and Bridger - are given names in the story. It is not clear how many others there are.

Only briefly mentioned by name, Bridger is the member of Grumby's gang who assists Matt Bowden in surrendering Grumby to Bayard and Ringo.

An accomplice of Grumby whose name is not mentioned until after he himself has departed for Texas, Bowden is described with unusual detail. His clothes - "neat little fine made boots," "linen shirt," and "coat that had been good once, too" (103) - and even his "small" hands and feet (104) suggest an upper class background. When he first appears he is posing as a planter from Tennessee chasing Grumby himself. His actions in the story, however, show him to be at least as ruthless and vicious as Grumby.

Described by Bayard as "almost as big as Ringo and me," this boy is "unconscious in the stable with even his shirt cut to pieces" after he was brutally whipped by Grumby and his men (102).

Along with her son, this "woman with a little thread of blood still running out of her mouth" (102) is a victim of Grumby and his men. Bayard vividly describes her voice as she describes the gang; it sounds "light and far away like a locust from across a pasture" (102).

Drusilla is Bayard's cousin. In "The Unvanquished," Bayard finds out that she is with his father, Colonel Sartoris, "riding with the troop like she was a man" (93). In "Vendee," Drusilla returns from war with John Sartoris.

Along with his wife Louvinia, Joby is the head of the family of slaves who have served the Sartorises for many years. Here he only makes a brief and unimpressive appearance at the end of the story. When Bayard describes his return along with Ringo to the cabin at Sartoris he lives in now, he notes "Joby in the chimney corner where Louvinia had made him get up out of Granny's chair" (116).

Assumed to be Ab Snopes's wife because she answers the door at his house, she tries to throw Bayard, Ringo, and Uncle Buck off the track by telling them that "Mr. Snopes" has gone to Alabama.

Grumby is the leader of Grumby's Independents, an irregular group intent on terrorizing the Mississippi countryside. As described in "The Unvanquished," although Grumby carries a commission allegedly signed by the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, he is in fact interested only in wreaking havoc to his and his company's own gain. In "Vendee," Bayard, Ringo, and Uncle Buck are in pursuit of him to avenge Granny's murder in a horsetrading scheme gone bad.