Tennessee in the Civil War in The Unvanquished (Location)

Tennessee is the state immediately to the north of Mississippi, about 60-70 miles from the approximate location of Yoknapatawpha County. The state was the location of some of the fiercest fighting in the western theater of the Civil War, especially the battle of Shiloh, which took place April 6-7, 1862, just twenty miles north of Corinth, Mississippi. Although that battle gave the Union Army effective control of the state, and Memphis was occupied by the Yankees by early June, 1862, fighting in Tennessee continues through much of the novel. In the first story, Colonel John Sartoris has been fighting in the mountains there, and in the fourth, Ab Snopes says that "Forrest and Smith," Confederate and Union commanders, are fighting along the roads to Memphis (120). There is one other mention of Tennessee in the novel: the outlaw Matt Bowden tells Bayard, Ringo and Uncle Buck that he is a plantation owner from Tennessee (167). There is no reason, however, to believe him.