Where It All Goes Down
Mississippi During the Civil War and Reconstruction
The Faulkner We Know and Love
William Faulkner is famous for setting much of his writing in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha (try saying that ten times fast), Mississippi. There's no mention of Yoknapatawpha in The Unvanquished, but it does take place mostly on the Sartoris plantation.
The thing is, the Sartoris family shows up in Faulkner's aptly named novel Sartoris, too, and there it is confirmed that they are from Yoknapatawpha county. So The Unvanquished nestles snugly into this literary universe, which spans many of his novels and short stories.
That gives the novel and characters a sense of continuation and being bigger than just this one book. If you like them, or want more, you can just keep on reading more of Faulkner's works.
War is Hell
General Sherman, the Union officer, is famous for having said that war is hell. If the winning side says something like that, then think of how the losers must feel. And The Unvanquished is all about the underdogs. The Southerners' lives are changed in every way. Many of them lose their homes and possessions; those who are slaves are freed; most of them radically lose economic and social standing.
The Civil War and Reconstruction is the time setting of The Unvanquished, and those political events permeate every single action in the novel. All of the physical movement—from the plantation to Memphis to Hawkhurst and back again, the hunts through the woods, etc.—is dictated by the events of the war or the fallout after it ends. But that sure doesn't mean the fight is over.