Sartoris Plantation Barn and Lot (Location Key)

The barn at the Sartoris plantation becomes the scene of the tense moment when Colonel Sartoris escapes from the Yankee patrol that has come to take him prisoner. The event is first narrated by Will Falls in Flags in the Dust. It is considerably more exciting when the Colonel's son retells it in "Retreat." According to Will, the Colonel walks "across that lot" and gets around "the corner of the barn" just before the Yankee shoots (23). In his son's account, the Colonel jumps onto his horse's back "like a bird," drives the horse down the length of the barn and "bursts" through the "lattice half doors at the back" just ahead of the Yankee bullets (33-34, 72-73). Falls mentions that soldier who fires the shot observes that "there aint no stock" in the barn "a-tall" (21), but in the last Unvanquished story Faulkner wrote, published separately as "My Grandmother Millard," Ab Snopes puts the horses he takes away from the Yankees in the "lot" next to the barn (685).