Unnamed Confederate Lieutenant

Character Key Number: 
533
Display Name: 
Unnamed Confederate Lieutenant
Sort Name: 
Unnamed Confederate Lieutenant
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

This is "the ragged unshaven lieutenant who leads the broken companies" of the Confederate brigade that has to retreat through Jefferson after losing a battle outside the town in 1864 (49). His appearance catches the eye of the jailer's daughter, who marries him "six months later" (49). When Faulkner retells this story from Intruder in the Dust again in Requiem for a Nun, he expands it quite a bit. The "gaunt and tattered, battle-grimed and fleeing and undefeated" lieutenant is leading the Confederate cavalrymen fighting a rear-guard action against the Union troops attacking Jefferson when Cecilia Farmer first sees him (182); after the War they marry, and he takes her to live on the "small hill farm" he inherits from his father in Alabama (185). The lieutenant never gets a name, and the description of the farm he inherits seems to identify him him as 'Lower' class, despite the fact that he is an officer.