This chapter traces the symbolism of the Prestes Column between 1930 (when Getúlio Vargas seized power) and 1954 (when Vargas committed suicide). As a way to weave together the trajectories of former tenente leaders during the turbulent Vargas era—giving particular attention to key events in Prestes's life and his global communist politics—this chapter draws on memoirs and books about the column, analyzing their contents (how the writers described the rebel passage through the interior) as well as the contexts of their publication. Prestes's exploits in the interior had provided a symbolic core of the tenentista movement, and the fusing of space and nation continued under Vargas, when the memory battles over how to represent the column became a proxy contest over who had the legitimacy to define the legacy of tenentismo.