SnopessInMGM

Half a dozen years after publishing the seven stories Bayard Sartoris narrates as The Unvanquished, Faulkner decided to write one more tale in the series. Published in the middle of World War II, "My Grandmother Millard" makes a kind of farce out of two Civil War 'battles' - one a skirmish in front of a "backhouse," i.e. an outdoor toilet; one an invention to enable a dashing young Confederate named "Backhouse" to change his name and marry a beautiful Southern belle. Ab Snopes dashes into it "on a strange horse as usual" (673) to alert the Sartorises to the imminent arrival of "a whole regiment of Yankee cavalry" (674). But the "regiment" turns out to be "a straggling-clump" of "six men in blue" on a private raid for silver (676), and Ab's motives in sounding the alarm turn out to be equally venal. Bayard's Granny once said "she would rather have Yankees in the house any day" than Ab (674), but after Backhouse chases the marauding Yankees away, Ab actually gets to sit at the dining room table with the members of the upper class. The story is careful to note, though, that he eats "a wad of greens" with his knife (683).