Once asked how much he based his characterization of the genteel Colonel Sartoris on his great-grandfather, Faulkner responded:
"That's difficult to say. That comes back to what we spoke of — the three sources the writer draws from — and I myself would have to stop and go page by page to see just how much I drew from family annals that I had listened to from these old undefeated spinster aunts that children of my time grew up with. Probably, well, the similarity of raising of that infantry regiment, that was the same, the — his death was about — was pretty close, pretty close parallel, but the rest of it I would have to go through to — page by page and remember, did I hear this or did I imagine this?"
What does not appear in Faulkner's fiction is that during all of his great-grandfather's projects and designs, the colonel took time to write one of the nation's bestsellers, The White Rose of Memphis, which was published in book form in 1881. He also wrote two other novels, but only The White Rose of Memphis was successful.
Falkner was finally killed by one of his rivals, and his death was never avenged. Today, a statue of him stands in the Oxford, Mississippi, cemetery. Dressed in a Confederate uniform, he looks out over the region for which he fought so desperately and so valiantly. Only William Faulkner, of all the Falkner clan, is as distinguished and, ultimately, became more distinguished than his great-grandfather.
