Virginia in Requiem for a Nun (Location)

Virginia appears in the novel in several different ways. Pettigrew is from Virginia - or as he puts it, "old Ferginny" (23) - which explains (in a very involved, some might say typically Faulknerian way) how Jefferson got its name. Because Richmond was the capitol of the Confederacy, the regiment formed in Jefferson was sworn in by a "Richmond mustering officer" (181). A number of major Civil War battles were fought in the state: First Manassas (36), Second Manassas (181), The Wilderness (194). The novel mentions Old Point Comfort, a fort on "the Atlantic Ocean," in connection with the last days of the War (184), as well as Appomattox, where Lee's surrender of his army brought the fighting to an end (184). And in the 20th century Gowan Stevens "went to the University of Virginia," where he "trained . . . not only in drinking but in gentility too" (103).