John Sartoris

John Sartoris fought for the South in the Civil War as both a regular and an irregular Confederate Colonel. In "Skirmish," Sartoris has returned after the South's surrender to reconstruct the plantation house that was burned by Yankees during the war and to continue fighting for the Old (white) South by organizing resistance to Reconstruction, in particular the efforts by Federal agents to secure the right of the newly emancipated slaves to vote and run for office. The story's account of his killing the Burdens to prevent blacks from voting is the third time that Faulkner's fiction describes the event (it first appears in Flags in the Dust, and again in Light in August). Amidst the tensions and violence, Faulkner focuses much of the narrative on John's forced marriage to Drusilla - forced by the ladies of Jefferson in their fight to maintain genteel standards. John can defeat the 'carpetbaggers,' but not the ladies.