1. State your full name and present Post Office address
Answer: Henry Smith Randle, Alamo, Tenn. Crockett
2. State your age now
Answer: 79
3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: Henry Co. Tennessee
4. In what State and county were you living when you enlisted in the service of the Confederacy, or of the Federal Government?
Answer: Henry Co. Tennessee
5. What was your occupation before the war?
Answer: Farming
6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: Farming
7. If you owned land or other property at the opening of the war, state what kind of property you owned, and state the value of your property as near as you can
Answer: I dident own any thing
8. Did you or your parents own slaves? If so, how many?
Answer: No
9. If your parents owned land, state about how many acres
Answer: none
10. State as near as you can the value of all the property owned by your parents, including land, when the war opened
Answer: ____________________
11. What kind of house did your parents occupy? State whether it was a log house or frame house or built of other materials, and state the number of rooms it had
Answer: Log house two rooms
12. As a boy and young man, state what kind of work you did. If you worked on a farm, state to what extent you plowed, worked with a hoe, and did other kinds of similar work (Certain historians claim that white men wouldn’t do work of this sort before the war.)
Answer: I made a regular hand at all kinds of farm work
13. State clearly what kind of work you father did, and what the duties of your mother were. State all the kinds of work done in the house as well as you can remember — that is, cooking, spinning, weaving, etc.
Answer: My father own farm and done some carpenter work
14. Did your parents keep any servants? If so, how many?
Answer: No
15. How was honest toil — as plowing, hauling and other sorts of honest work of this class — regarded in your community? Was such work considered respectable and honorable?
Answer: Yes
16. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: Yes
17. To what extent were there white men in your community leading lives of idleness and having other do their work for them?
Answer: None
18. Did the men who owned slaves mingle freely with those who did not own slaves, or did slaveholders in any way show by their actions that they felt themselves better than respectable, honorable men who did not own slaves?
Answer: all equal
19. At the churches, at the schools, at public gatherings in general, did slaveholders and non-slaveholders mingle on a footing of equality?:
Answer: yes freely
20. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: yes
21. In a political contest in which one candidate owned slaves and the other did not, did the fact that one candidate owned slaves help him in winning the contest?:
Answer: no
22. Were the opportunities good in your community for a poor young man — honest and industrious — to save up enough to buy a small farm or go in business for himself?
Answer: it was verry to do
23. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: encoraged
24. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: rural subscription
25. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: about 14 months
26. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: one mile
27. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: privat
28. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: private
29. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: 3 months
30. Did the boys and girls in your community attend school pretty regularly?
Answer: some did and some did not
31. Was the teacher of the school you attended a man or a woman?
Answer: man
32. In what year and month and at what place did you enlist the Confederate or of the Federal Government?
Answer: dec. 1861 Henry Co. Tenn.
33. State the name of your regiment, and state the names of as many members of your company as you remember
Answer: 46 Tenn. Volunteer Tom Vaughn, Tom McSwain, Atlas Marton?, David Marton, James Weddon? Sam Smith, Alexander Morgan, Pink Shilcut, Robert Lowerry, Bob Moudy.
34. After enlistment, where was your company sent first?
Answer: Union Citty Tenn.
35. How long after your enlistment before your company engaged in battle?
Answer: the regment was neary all captured near Tiptonville April 7, 1862
36. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Was one with a few others made my escap at tiptonville
37. State in your own way your experience in the war from this time on until the close. State where you went after the first battle — what you did, what other battles you engaged in, how long they lasted, what the results were; state how you lived in camp, how you were clothed, how you slept, what you had to eat, how you exposed to cold, hunger and disease. If you were in the hospital or in prison, state your experience here
Answer: in September 1863 I enlisted N. B. Forest and was in 8 battles and skirmishes Padducah Oklalona the first part of the war we had plnty to eat and good tents the last part little enogh to eat and slept without cover in April 1864 I transfered back to the 46 Tenn. reg. was with Johnson.
38. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: the first september 1864 I was sent to Augusta Ga. to hospital with chrnic diarrea 27 of Oct. got a 60 day furlogh.
39. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: I came Augusta to get to mongermery Ala. by rail road from there selma Ala by the river and from there corrinth Miss by rail road from I walked most of the way making 8-10 miles a day
40. What kind of work did you take up when you came back home?
Answer: farming
41. Give a sketch of your life since the close of the Civil War, stating what kind of business you have engaged in, where you have lived, your church relations, etc. If you have held an office or offices state what it was. You may state here any other facts connected with your life and experience which has not been brought out in the questions
Answer: I hav farmed all my life never held any office of trust
42. Give the full name of your father: Richard Whitlow Randle born _____________ at ______________ in the county of ___________ state of N. Carlina. He lived at in Henry co. Tenn.
Give also any particulars concerning him, as official position, war services, etc.; books written by, etc.
Answer: a strict member of the M. E. church south
43. Maiden name in full of your mother: Lydia Almina Canon; She was the daughter of (full name) Martin Canon and his wife (full name) Arminta ______; who lived at ________________.
44. Remarks on ancestry. Give here any and all facts possible in reference to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., not included in the foregoing, as where they lived, office held, Revolutionary or other war services; what country the family came from to America; where first settled, county and state; always giving full names (if possible) and never referring to an ancestor simply as such without giving the name. It is desirable to include every fact possible and to that end the full and exact record from old Bibles should be appended on separate sheets of this size, thus preserving the facts from loss
Answer: I havenet the records of my ancesters.