Unnamed Union Soldiers

While no Union troops appear directly in the story, they are referred to at different points by Bayard, his father John, Drusilla and Ringo. Bayard notes that northeastern Mississippi "had been full of Yankees" for three years before they "burned Jefferson" and left the area at the end of 1864 (58). John seems to think that if they returned they would help him and the other white men of Yoknapatawpha restore the order that had been disrupted by the War (65). Drusilla tries to explain to the ladies that she joined John's unit "to hurt Yankees" (65). And Ringo contrasts the northerners who come into Yoknapatawpha after the War with the troops who were there during it by saying in those earlier days you could recognize a "Yankee" "because he never had nothing but a gun or a mule halter or a handful of hen feathers" (66).