General Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee, the most famous of the generals who led the Confederate forces during the Civil War, is mentioned in 11 different Yoknapatawpha fictions. For most of the war he was in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, where the Confederate regiment mustered in Jefferson was fighting, but at the beginning of 1865, the last year of the war, he was appointed General-in-Chief of the Confederate States Army. He never appears in person. Although Faulkner's attitude toward the cause for which Lee fought changes dramatically over the course of his career, the attitude displayed by the various characters and narrators in those 11 texts toward "Lee" - as a military leader, a man and a 'gentleman' - remains essentially positive.