The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Abraham Lincoln, who led the Union during the Civil War, was the 16th president of the United States of America.

While Grant does not personally appear in the novel, he commands the Union forces who do appear in Mississippi.

Although the story mentions "General Smith" twice (75, 79), it does not give his first name. There were two Union Generals with that last name who fought Confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest in Mississippi at various times after the fall of Vicksburg. General William Sooy Smith was defeated by Forrest on February 22, 1864 in the Battle of Okolona, and did in fact fight Forrest "up and down the road to Memphis" (79). However, most scholars assume the General Smith in Faulkner's story is Andrew Jackson Smith, who fought Forrest at the Battle of Tupelo in July, 1864.

A planter and slave trader before the war, Nathan Bedford Forrest served in the western theater and rose from Private to General. He is only mentioned in "The Unvanquished."

The man whom Bayard calls "father" (74, etc.) and Ab Snopes calls "Kernel Sartoris" (77) is Colonel John Sartoris, who appears in more Yoknapatawpha fictions than any other character. He plays a major role in the larger history of Yoknapatawpha, a stature that Ab acknowledges when he compliments Rosa by saying "You got my respect. John Sartoris, himself, can't tech you" (76). Ab also briefly notes why Sartoris is not at home: "he hells all over the country day and night with a hundred armed men" fighting the Yankees (76).

Joby and his wife Louvinia are the head of the family of slaves who have served the Sartorises for several generations. In this story his basic role is to help maintain the fenced-in lot where Rosa hides the mules she has 'requisitioned' from the Union army.

In this fourth Unvanquished tale, Rosa Millard - the mother-in-law of Col. John Sartoris and the grandmother of Bayard Sartoris - continues amid the hardships brought on by the Civil War to take care of her family, her slaves and the Sartoris plantation, but the story focuses on her campaign to also help the larger community of Yoknapatawpha, especially the poor of both races.