1. State your full name and present Post Office address
Answer: William Thomas Mays, McLemoresville, Tennessee

2. State your age now
Answer: Eighty six years (86yrs)

3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: In Virginia, Pennsylvania County

4. In what State and county were you living when you enlisted in the service of the Confederacy, or of the Federal Government?
Answer: I was living in Dyer County Tennessee (Confederacy)

5. What was your occupation before the war?
Answer: I was working at the carpenter's trade

6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: My father was a farmer

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 owned no property but a horse and saddle and my carpenter tools. And a few notes valued at about $300. All of this was lost when I enlisted in the service and never heard of any of it, afterwards.

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: Never owned any, as the first settlers of Dyer county settled where they please

10. 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 remember

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: The houses were all log houses. My father moved from place to place. The old saying was "The first settlers got the game and the next got the land."

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: All the work I did, when a boy, was on the farm.

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: Father was a farmer. And as stores were scarce, all the cloth was woven at home by mother and made into clothing. I was taught to spin and draw the cloth in the loom.

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: Honest toil was considered honorable and respectable.

16. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: They did

17. To what extent were there white men in your community leading lives of idleness and having other do their work for them?
Answer: Do not remember

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: There were not many slaves in that country in those days. But what few slave owners there were did not mingle with the others in every respect. No more than the ones do now, who own lots of property.

19. At the churches, at the schools, at public gatherings in general, did slaveholders and non-slaveholders mingle on a footing of equality?: Answer: They attended the same churches and the same schools.

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: The candidate who owned slaves was helped by this, in the contest.

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: Yes

23. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: He was encouraged.

24. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: I attended a subscription school.

25. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: About five weeks, and in this time I went to three different teachers

26. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: About two miles

27. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: They were subscription school. Each parent signed up for so many children, a certain length of time, paid his tuition.

28. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: The schools were private.

29. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: About 3 months.

30. Did the boys and girls in your community attend school pretty regularly?
Answer: Yes

31. Was the teacher of the school you attended a man or a woman?
Answer: A man, twas a long time before I ever heard of a woman teacher.

32. In what year and month and at what place did you enlist the Confederate or of the Federal Government?
Answer: In November 1861 at Columbus Kentucky.

33. State the name of your regiment, and state the names of as many members of your company as you remember
Answer: 12th Tennessee I do not remember all the names. There are two besides my-self living now - Dr. Rice and Sam Hailey. These are all I know.

34. After enlistment, where was your company sent first?
Answer: Columbus Kentucky

35. How long after your enlistment before your company engaged in battle?
Answer: About two or three weeks

36. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Belmont, Missouri

37. State in you 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 you experience here
Answer: After first battle went to Corinth Miss. Stayed there until the battle of Shiloh. Battle of Shiloh, retreated to Corinth stayed there a while, and went to Kentucky. Next we went into the Battle of Richmond, Ky. - and then to Perryville, Ky. and then back to Knoxville, Tenn. Clothing was scarce, we never stayed in camp long at a time as we were on the run most of the time. Built winter quarters at Murfreesboro but did not stay long. No base of supplies, food was scarce.

38. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: Never was discharged, after battle of Franklin, I belonged to Engineer troops, they were building a railroad bridge when the order came to cook up two days rations and march. There was nothing to cook. The Captain threw his hammer in the river and with an oath said "Boys take care of your selves I'm going home."

39. Tell something of your trip home: Answer: I finally landed in prison, when I came out of prison I enlisted in United States army, and spent the time of my service in the North western, engaged in the Indian Wars.

40. What kind of work did you take up when you came back home?
Answer: Carpenter's trade.

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 have farmed, lived in Hollow Rock and now in McLemoresville, Methodist Church.

42. Give the full name of your father: Tapley Mays born __________ at_________ in the county of Pennsylvania state of Virginia. He lived at _________.

Give also any particulars concerning him, as official position, war services, etc.; books written by, etc.
Answer: His father died in the war of 1812 at Norfolk, Va.

43. Maiden name in full of your mother: Prudence Echols; She was the daughter of (full name) Moses Echols and his wife (full name) Elizabeth Terry; who lived at All born in Pennsylvania, Va. Lived in Dyer county Tenn..

44. Remarks on ancestry. Give here any and all facts possible in reference to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., no 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: My father's mother was an Ingrham. The whole ancestors came from England. My Father Grandmother was a Dodson. My Mother's Mother was Terry and her grandmother was a Winn.