Minor Fictional Characters in The Guns of the South

This article lists the various minor fictional characters who appear in The Guns of the South. These characters play at best a peripheral role in the novel. Most were simply mentioned or had a very brief, unimportant speaking role that impacted the plot minimally, if at all, and never appeared again. Some were not even given a name.

Eugen Blankaard
Eugen Blankaard was the author of The Afrikaner Resistance Movement: What It Is (2004), a manifesto of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.

Literary comment
Eugen Blankaard is a linguistic variant of Eugene Terre'Blanche, historical founder of the AWB.

Asbury Finch
First Lieutenant Asbury Finch was with the 21st Georgia regiment during the Second American Revolution.

During the winter of 1863/64 Lt. Finch served with the quartermaster's corp. As part of his duties, he accompanied supply trains to the winter quarters of the Army of Northern Virginia. Prior to one such trip, he received a telegram from General Robert E. Lee ordering him to stop at the small town of Rivington, North Carolina to allow some supplies to be loaded and some civilians to board the train.

Lt. Finch followed orders and had a large number of crates of two types loaded on the train. After this was done, he opened two crates, one of each type and found carbines of a curious manufacture and metal cartridges. He also allowed about a dozen men in "all-over-spots" clothing to board. Prior to the train leaving, he telegraphed a report to General Lee.

When the train arrived at Lee's HQ in Orange Court House, Finch followed up with a verbal report.

Literary comment
Although a Confederate soldier named Asbury Finch is listed in historical records, he was from the 5th North Carolina Infantry rather than a Georgian regiment, and never reached a higher rank than Private.

Ernie Graaf
Ernie Graaf was a colleague of Andries Rhoodie's and was part of the contingent that arrived at Orange Court House with the first shipment of AK-47s.

Wilhelm Gebhard
Wilhelm Gebhard was a colleague of Andries Rhoodie's and was part of the contingent that arrived at Orange Court House with the first shipment of AK-47s. He helped train Jeb Stuart's cavalry in the use of the new rifle.

Avram Goldfarb
Avram Goldfarb (b. 1810s) was a merchant in Richmond. A Jewish native of Aachen, Prussia, he was able to read the mysterious written language of the Rivington Men, which seemed to be a "mishmash" of German "Deutsch" and Netherlands "Dutch." He successfully translated the important parts of a book by Eugen Blankaard. The book seemed to him like nonsense, proofread by a drunk who misprinted the year as 2004. President Lee advised him not to talk about the "error"-ridden book with anyone else, and neither man was able to deduce the purpose of the qwerty machine.