Alexander Holston appears in several Yoknapatawpha texts as one of the first three white men who "crossed the mountains from Virginia and Carolina after the Revolution and came down into Mississippi in the seventeen-nineties and established Jefferson and named it" (7). His name survives in 20th century Jefferson in the Holston House.
The "McClellan" who earns a spot on the novel's list of the Civil War generals on both sides who heard the "shrill hackle-lifting" rebel yell in battle (188) is Union General George McClellan, commander-in-chief of the army that faced Lee during the early months of the Civil War.
