Great-Grandfather Priest

Lucius briefly describes his Grandfather's father as a Confederate "color sergeant" who was shot and killed during the fighting in Virginia in 1862 (285). The fact that he was a sergeant rather than a commissioned officer complicates the question of the family's class status. When, for example, Lucius earlier discusses how his great-grandmother, this man's wife, taught his grandfather how to behave as a gentleman, it seems to imply an upper class background (200) - but in Faulkner such a background usually translates into a higher military rank than sergeant. (As a 'color' sergeant he would have carried a flag into battle. And the novel says he was shot "out of his saddle," which means he was riding a horse - a sign of both military and social rank in Faulkner's world, 278.)