1. State your full name and present post office address:
Answer: Leander K. Baker, Alamo, Tenn.
2. State your age now:
Answer: 92 years old
3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: N. C. Roan County (Rowan?)
4. Were you a Confederate or Federal soldier?
Answer: Confederate
5. Name of your Company?
Answer: E-7th Tennessee
6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: Farmer
7. Give full name of your father: Mosie Baker; born at Saulsbury; in the County of Roan Co.; State of N. C.; He lived at lived at Boliva(r), Hardamen co., Tenn. after 1845.
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: Safira Coon; she was the daughter of: (full name) Mical Coon and his wife: (full name) (dont know); who lived at: Saulsbury, N.C..
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 grand fathers both came from Germany
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:none
11. Did you or your parents own slaves? If so, how many?
Answer: no
12. If your parents owned land, state about how many acres:
Answer: about 100 acres when the war broke out
13. State as near as you can the value of all the property owned by your parents, including land, when the war opened:
Answer: $300.00
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: log house two rooms with puncheon floors
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: worked on farm plowed an stur? part of the time hoed cleared land etc.
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: worked on farm all kind of farm work. my mother done the cooking carded and spun & wove all cloth for our clothes
17. Did your parents keep any servants? If so, how many?
Answer: none
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: yes
19. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: yes
20. To what extent were there white men in your community leading lives of idleness and having others do their work for them?
Answer: none
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: men who owned slaves did not mingle with those who did not own slaves. they seemed to think themselves better than those who did not own slaves.
22. At the churches, at the school, at public gatherings in general, did slaveholders and non-slaveholders mingle on a footing of equality?
Answer: The slave holder had private school for his children. All went to the same churches
23. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: In some there was a friendly feeling but mostly there was not
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: yes
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: no
26. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: discouraged
27. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: a Private
28. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: about 4 months a year 2 in the summer and 2 in the winter
29. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: about 1 1/2 mile
30. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: none but subscription school in a log house with puncheon floor, seats made out of split logs
31. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: private
32. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: about 4 months a year
33. Did the boys and girls in your community attend school pretty regularly?
Answer: no
34. Was the teacher of the school you attended a man or woman?
Answer: man
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: I enlisted the first year of the war at Bolivar Hardeman county Tenn. in the Confederate army
36. After enlistment, where was your Company sent first?
Answer: Columbus, Ky.
37. How long after enlistment before your Company engaged in battle?
Answer: I dont know the first battle I was in was fort Donelson
38. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Fort Donelson Tenn.
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: I dont know all the battles I was in. I was in Shilo, Hernando, Cross Roads, Miss. We had very few clothes. Slept on the ground and at times had very little to eat. I went 9 days and had but one biscuit during the time. Was marching all this time. There was at the start 147 in my company at the close there was but 9 of them living.
40. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: Corinth Miss. after the surrender of Lee.
41. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: I was at home when Gen. Lee surrendered. Was crippled by a runaway team and sent home
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: After the war in 1867 I married Bettie Fulgun, the daughter of Rolf Fulgum. From this union there were 6 children born 4 boys and 2 girls. There is now living 2 boys and one girl. Been farming all the time. Mooved from Hardeman county to Crockett county about 26 years ago. My wife died 35 years ago last Sept. I made a crop myself Do the plowing, hoeing, etc.
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: I cant remember but few names of my Company – dont know where the Roster is.
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: Bill Taylor, Boliva(r), Tenn.; Dr. James Neely, Boliva(r), Tenn.; Bob Webb, Boliva(r), Tenn.; Hugh Branch, Alamo, Tenn; J. C. Smothers, Alamo, Tenn; James Baldridge, Bells, Tenn.; T. J. Evans, Alamo, Tenn; P. B. Nance, Alamo, Tenn; T. N. Skelton, Alamo, Tenn;