General Smith

Submitted by thagood@fau.edu on Fri, 2013-12-20 14:40
Text: 
"The Unvanquished"
Character Key: 
General Smith
Display Name: 
General Smith
Sort Name: 
Smith, General Andrew Jackson
Race: 
White
Gender: 
Male
Class: 
Middle Class
Rank: 
Peripheral
Vitality: 
Alive
Occupation: 
Armed Forces
Specific Job: 
Union Officer
First Mentioned: 
Sartoris Plantation Slave Cabin in "The Unvanquished" (Location)
Date of Birth: 
Friday, April 28, 1815
Origin: 
Pennsylvania
Other Texts: 
"My Grandmother Millard and General Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Harrykin Creek"
The Unvanquished
Biography: 

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. Faulkner had a particular reason to know this Smith: that same summer he led the Union soldiers who burned both Oxford (the original of Jefferson) and Ripley, where among the houses they destroyed was the home of Colonel William Falkner, the author's great-grandfather.

Ontological Status: 
Historical/Real
Individual or Group: 
Individual
Character changes class in this text: 

digyok:node/character/3148