Father of Lucius Priest I

In The Reivers Lucius briefly describes his Grandfather's father as a Confederate "color sergeant" who was shot and killed during the fighting in Virginia in 1862 (285). The fact that he was a sergeant rather than a commissioned officer complicates the question of the family's class status. When, for example, Lucius earlier discusses how his great-grandmother, this man's wife, taught his grandfather how to behave as a gentleman, it seems to imply an upper class background (cf. 200) - but in Faulkner such a background usually translates into a higher military rank than sergeant.