Both Caroline's paternal grandfather Charles and his brother Cuthbert died during the American Revolutionary War while serving under the command of George Washington.

Caroline's sister, Justianna Dickinson Word, married John Wesley Thompson, who in 1834 was arrested for killing a man during a fight.

[4] Per Richard Bruce Winders' history of the Mississippi Rifles: William C. Faulkner...had gone riding outside the city limits when he was fired on from ambush.

Although not life- threatening, the painful wounds prevented Faulkner from effectively performing his duties, and the lieutenant asked for a medical discharge.

Afterward, it was claimed by a fellow officer, 2nd Lt. Thomas C. Hindman, Faulkner had been shot while visiting Aguas Calientes, a popular village nearby that had been placed off limits by General Taylor.

The feud between the two officers continued after they both returned home, culminating when Faulkner killed Hindman’s brother Robert with a bowie knife on the streets of Ripley, Mississippi.

Like Faulkner and his brother, Thomas, Robert had been a member of the Tippah Guards although only a private.When the American Civil War broke out, he raised a company of men and was made colonel in the Second Mississippi Infantry of the Confederate Army, leading the regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run.

His most famous work was a novel entitled The White Rose of Memphis (New York, G. W. Carleton & co.; 1881), a murder mystery set on board a steamboat of the same name.