Carter is a sentinel for the Union. He is sent out to search the top of a hill to find out if there is a road leading to the South and check if his regiment’s position is safe. He is on a lower hill while he sees someone on a horse on a hill above him. His job as a sentinel is to report and to take out anyone he can who may cause a threat to the army. He sees the man and loads his rifle. Just as he is going to shoot, the horseman turns, and looks Carter right in the eyes. Carter starts to go "pale; he shook in every limb,[and] turned faint"(30) as he saw that the horseman was his father. This is where we see "the horseman in the sky" for the first time. It is the silhouette of a man on a horse atop a hill. Carter is looking up at the horseman, so it literally means that sees a horseman in the sky. He is shaken up because he is about to shoot his father, but he remembers "as if they were a divine mandate, rang the words of his father at their parting: ‘Whatever may occur, do what you conceive to be your duty.'" This calmed Carter and he fired.
After Carter hits his target, the horseman falls over as anyone would do if shot standing at the edge of the cliff. Carter feeling dizzy from the altitude and the fact that he just killed his dad, " saw an astonishing sight- a man on horseback riding strait down into the valley through the air!" The horseman wasn’t riding down, but falling. This is another meaning of the horseman in the sky. It is the falling silhouette of a horseman.
The last meaning in the title that has the deepest meaning is how Carter referred to his father. He knew it was his father when he looked into his eyes, but after this encounter, it is ironic how he refers to his dad as just the "horseman", and not his father. He refers to his dad with vague descriptions of a "man on horseback"(31), or "the group of man and horse"(30), and the way he tells his general who he shot. His general asks Carter whom he shot at. Carter said seemingly without any care, "My father." This shows how the relationship between Carter and his dad grew apart, and when Carter went off to the Union, that was the final cut. It broke off all ties of friendship with his father. This could be a reason why Carter just refers to his dad as just another man on a horse. He shot because it was for the good of the army and not because he was angry with his dad. If he didn’t care, he would have fired immediately.
The title of the "horseman in the sky" has many meanings. From being just a silhouette looked up upon, the actual falling of the group, and how a son would refer his father as. The irony of how Carter refers to his dad as just a horseman shows in his thought which cleared his mind. He remembers how his dad told him to do what he conceived to be his duty. We won’t know whether or not Carter would have shot his dad if this did not pop into his head. Carter’s duty was to shoot the enemy spy, and that is what he did. The silhouette seems to be in the sky because of its location on the edge of a cliff. The actual falling of the group was perceived by Carter to be amazing and terrifying.
When Carter returned to camp and had time to think about what he just did, he can be at ease now that he can look back upon his father as truly being "the horseman in the sky."
