One of the six sons of Virginius MacCallum in Flags in the Dust, and of the five sons of Anse McCallum in "The Tall Men," Lee is described in the novel as the "least talkative of them all"; his face is "a dark, saturnine mask" and his eyes are "black and restless," with "something wild and sad" lurking in them" (334). He plays almost no part in the events in the short story. Like most of the MacCallums, he is named for a prominent Confederate - Robert E. Lee.
Lucius McCallum is one of Buddy McCallum's twin sons in "The Tall Men, "two absolutely identical blue-eyed youths" (49), and is mentioned as one of the "the twin McCallum nephews" of Rafe in "Knight's Gambit" (210). In the first story he and his brother Lucius play have identical histories. They are "wild as spikehorn bucks" as children (55). Later, they go to the agricultural college to learn how to raise whiteface cattle.
Anse McCallum is one of Buddy McCallum's twin sons in "The Tall Men": "two absolutely identical blue-eyed youths" (49) who are mentioned together as "the twin McCallum nephews" of Rafe in "Knight's Gambit" (210). He also appears, but without any mention of his twin brother, The Town. In the first story he and his brother Lucius have identical histories. They are "wild as spikehorn bucks" as children (55). Later, they go to the agricultural college to learn how to raise whiteface cattle.
Virginius MacCallum is married twice in Flags in the Dust. The novel says very little about his deceased second wife, except that Buddy, Virginius' youngest and her only son, inherited his "hazel eyes and reddish thatch" of hair from her (354).
In Flags in the Dust Virginius MacCallum has two wives. Both have died before the novel takes place. The first of them was clearly a country girl of humble origins: her dowry consisted of a clock and "a dressed hog" (332). The novel does not mention anything else about her, but what it says later about the second wife - Buddy's mother, from whom he gets his coloring - suggests this wife was the mother of Virginius' five other sons: unlike Buddy, for instance, they all have "brown eyes and black hair" (354).
Virginius MacCallum's mother is not mentioned in Flags in the Dust, but in "The Tall Men" - where that character is referred to as "Old Anse" - this woman is identified as "a Carter," which explains his determination "to go all the way back to Virginia to do his fighting" at the start of the Civil War (54). (The Carters are one of the oldest white families in Virginia, dating back to the early 17th century.)
One of the six sons of Virginius MacCallum in Flags in the Dust, and of the five sons of Anse McCallum in "The Tall Men," and the twin brother of Rafe, Stuart is named after the famous Confederate cavalry general, J.E.B. Stuart. He also appears in As I Lay Dying, but not as Stuart - because Samson cannot remember his first name. Like his brothers, he is a 'tall man': honorable, strong, stoic.
One of the six sons of Virginius MacCallum in Flags in the Dust, and of the five sons of Anse McCallum in "The Tall Men," and the twin brother of Stuart, Rafe appears in more texts - five - than any of his brothers. In Flags he is an old friend of the Sartoris twins, John and Bayard, and tries to help Bayard with his pain by offering homemade whiskey and a chance to talk about the war. He is only mentioned in As I Lay Dying as the twin brother of the MacCallum (Stuart) whose first name Samson can't remember (119).
The eldest of the sons in the MacCallum|McCallum family, Jackson is named for the Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson, under whom his father served in the Civil War. He appears as a minor character in two texts. In Flags in the Dust he is described as "a sort of shy and impractical Cincinnatus" (337). Much to his father's disgust, he is attempting to transform hunting by interbreeding a fox and a hound.
Henry is the second of Virginius MacCallum's six sons in Flags in the Dust and the only one who doesn't appear with the other five in "The Tall Men." In view of that absence, the descriptions of his character in the novel in which he does appear are significant. He is "squat" and "slightly tubby," with "something domestic, womanish" about him (335). Unlike his brothers, he spends "most of the time" inside: he superintends the kitchen, is "a better cook" than the black woman who is the family's official cook, and is locally famous for the quality of his homemade whiskey (335).
