1. State your full name and present post office address:
Answer: Thomas Jefferson Evans, Bells, Tenn. RFD 5
2. State your age now:
Answer: 77 years of age 9th of Dec. 1921
3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: Conway County, Arkansas.
4. Were you a Confederate or Federal soldier?
Answer: Confederate Soldier.
5. Name of your Company?
Answer: Craddocks Company; Bennetts Battalion.
6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: Farmer
7. Give full name of your father:William Evans; born at Middle Tennessee; in the County of ___; State of Tennessee; He lived at On White Oak Creek.
Give also any particulars concerning him, as official position, war services, etc.; books written by him, etc.:
Answer: none
8. Maiden name in full of your mother: Sarah Anne Aikins; she was the daughter of: (full name) ____ and his wife: (full name) ____; who lived at: Middle Tennessee.
9. 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, offices held, Revolutionary or other war service; what country they came from to America; 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: My grandfather Thomas Evans was in one of the wars (of 1812 I think).
10. 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: ____________
11. Did you or your parents own slaves? If so, how many?
Answer: My parents did. Three I think.
12. If your parents owned land, state about how many acres:
Answer: About 150 acres, I think.
13. State as near as you can the value of all the property owned by your parents, including land, when the war opened:
Answer: Don’t know
14. What kind of house did your parents occupy? State whether it was a log house or frame house or built of other material, and state the number of rooms it had:
Answer: Frame and log house
15. 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 would not do work of this sort before the war.)
Answer: Plowed nearly altogether. Was the only child in the family able to plow and had to do it all.
16. State clearly what kind of work your 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: Father did general farm work and Mother did general house work.
17. Did your parents keep any servants? If so, how many?
Answer: Yes. Just mentioned three slaves.
18. 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: Then as now, honest and honorable by honest and respectable people.
19. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: Yes Sir
20. To what extent were there white men in your community leading lives of idleness and having others do their work for them?
Answer: About the same as it is now
21. 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 now own slaves?
Answer: Not at that time, did the slave owners consider themselves better than anybody else on account of their property. People were not judged so much by their worth in dollars and cents but more by their character. No difference was made in our community.
22. At the churches, at the school, at public gatherings in general, did slaveholders and non-slaveholders mingle on a footing of equality?
Answer: (above answer written over this space).
23. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: Yes Sire. No difference.
24. 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 any in winning the contest?
Answer: I think not.
25. 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
26. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: They were encouraged.
27. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: Both – public and private.
28. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: Not a great deal.
29. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: About 1/2 mile from our farm.
30. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: Just a small community country school.
31. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: Both at times.
32. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: About 2 in summer and 2 or 3 in winter.
33. Did the boys and girls in your community attend school pretty regularly?
Answer: Yes
34. Was the teacher of the school you attended a man or woman?
Answer: Both at times.
35. In what year and month and at what place did you enlist in the service of the Confederacy or of the Federal Government?
Answer: 1863 – December (just after reaching the age of 18 years). Cageville, —- now in Alamo, Tennessee.
36. After enlistment, where was your Company sent first?
Answer: To Mississippi
37. How long after enlistment before your Company engaged in battle?
Answer: (Skirmishes). The second day we went out.
38. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: At Okolona, Miss.
39. State in your own way your experience in the War from this time on to its close. State where you went after the first battle – what you did and 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 were exposed to cold, hunger and disease. If you were in the hospital or prison, state your experience there:
Answer: We went all over Mississippi – was under Forest – and went about a good deal. Was with Forests command all time. We were consolidated with the 12 Tennessee Regiment shortly after we went into Bennetts battalion. Forest nearly always won his battles. If he didnt win, the other side thought so from the men they lost. We had a pretty hard time, things to eat were scarce and not good frequently. We got hungary, cold, and had very few serviceable clothes but always got along some how and were always ready when the time came to give the Yanks a licking.
40. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: (above written in space).
41. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: Discharged at Gainsville, Ala. (this should be in space #40) rode home on my horse. Things looked pretty bad for the country was in a terrible state of devastation.
42. 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 any 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 by the questions:
Answer: Farming
43. What kind of work did you take up when you came back home?
Answer: Lived in Crockett Co., Tenn. since war… engaged in farming… have held offices of Magistrate, long time… Deputy Sheriff, Constable.
44. On a separate sheet, give the names of some of the great men who you have known or met in your time, and tell some of the circumstances of the meeting or incidents in their lives. Also add any further personal reminiscences. (Use all the space you want.)
Answer: __________________
45. Give the names of all the members of your Company you can remember. (If you know where the Roster is to be had, please make special note of this.)
Answer: Cant remember them all
46. Give the NAME and POST OFFICE ADDRESS of any living Veterans of the Civil War, whether members of your Company or not; whether Tennesseans or from other States.
Answer: (Some names have been typed in spaces, then blotted out.)
(Extra page)
… I was with Forest on the “Hood raid” – we had a hard battle at Franklin. Then we followed them up to Nashville… they were scared to death and if we had gone on we could have taken the city and they (Yankees) got all of the reinforcements they wanted before we attacked and we were driven back. Went ashore the Tennessee river into Alabama, at the foot of Muscle shoals. We corssed on a pontoon bridge. It didnt look any too safe. We were engaged 26 days and nights… the delay of 9 days cost us the city of Nashville, I think. I think we could have taken it had we pressed on. That wound up my fighting… it wasnt long after that until the war was over.