The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Colonel John Sartoris is the patriarch of the Sartoris clan and a prominent planter in Yoknapatawpha County. He doesn't appear in person in this story, but his name does: Rosa seems to assume it is potent enough to command the Yankee troops - "I'm John Sartoris' mother-in-law! Send Colonel Dick to me!" (49).

The Union officer who asks Drusilla to convince the Negroes camped out at the river to return to their former owners.

This icon represents the various Union soldiers who are in control of the bridge over the river. The bridge and the areas on both sides of it are "full of Yankee soldiers" when Rosa Millard gets there (49). Some - identified by Drusilla as "a brigade of cavalry" (45) - are holding the crowd of self-emancipated slaves away from the bridge, others are preparing to blow it up, still others are described as "riding up and down the cliff" above the water or bivouacked "down at the water" (51).

William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union General who served under U.S. Grant, is famously known for burning Atlanta in 1864, and for "Sherman's March to the Sea," during which his forces destroyed crucial resources and infrastructure in Georgia and the Carolinas, thus crippling the Southern war efforts.

On their way to the river, Drusilla, Rosa, Bayard and Ringo have to move through a huge crowd of self-emancipated slaves, trying to make their way to the Union army on the other side of the river. They are described as "men carrying babies, women dragging children by the hand, and women with babies, and old ones pulling themselves along with sticks" (48). This group is being held away from the bridge by the Union cavalry.

Gavin Breckbridge was engaged to Drusilla, to whom he gave the horse named Bobolink. Gavin died in the Battle of Shiloh.

Drusilla is Bayard's cousin. Before the War, she was engaged to Gavin Breckbridge, who died at Shiloh. At the time of the story, she is a very skilled rider who rides "astride like a man" rather than sidesaddle (43), wears "pants, like a man" (44), and aches to fight in Colonel Sartoris' troop against the Yankees. Described as "not tall" and "light as a willow branch in the wind," she nonetheless defends her family plantation against both the Union army and the self-emancipated slaves who travel behind them with great courage.

Jingus is a slave of the Hawks, who live in his cabin after their main house was burned down by Union troops. On Bayard's previous visit to Hawkhurst, Jingus showed him the railroad. It is not known if he is still at Hawkhurst at the time of this visit, or if, like numerous other Negroes in the story who emancipate themselves, he has decided to follow the Union army when it moves on.

Louise Hawk lives with her son Denny and daughter Drusilla at Hawkhurst in Alabama. She does not want Drusilla or Rosa Millard to go to the bridge, which is being mined by Union troops. (In the other Unvanquished stories her name is "Louisa," not "Louise.")

Ten-year-old Denny Hawk is Drusilla's brother and Bayard's cousin. He lives at his family's plantation, Hawkhurst, in Alabama, and shares his cousin's fascination with the railroad.