1. State your full name and present Post Office address
Answer: Gentry Richard McGee, 421 College Street, Jackson, Tennessee

2. State your age now
Answer: Eighty one years, September 17, 1926

3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: State of Mississippi, county of Holmes, Village of Ebenezer.

4. In what State and county were you living when you enlisted in the service of the Confederacy, or of the Federal Government?
Answer: State of Tennessee, County of Dyer, in Company B, 12th Tenn. Infantry.

5. What was your occupation before the war?
Answer: Teaching my first school, just out of college

6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: Physician, graduated from Tulane University Medical Department, New Orleans in 1836.

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: Owned nothing but a little money in the hands of a guardian which was lost in Confederate securities. I was not 21 years old when the war began.

8. Did you or your parents own slaves? If so, how many?
Answer: My parents owned six, a man and his wife who had two boys and one girl, and young woman.

9. If your parents owned land, state about how many acres
Answer: 80 acres

10. State as near as you can the value of all the property owned by your parents, including land, when the war opened
Answer: I was only 16 years old when both my parents died. The value of their property here given is chiefly my guess. Perhaps the value was $7000 or $8000.

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: A framed house of seven rooms, two stories. Kitchen and other out-building of logs.

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 did all kinds of farm work at intervals while getting my education; plowed, hoes, cleared land of timber, made rails and oak boards, pickets & pulled fodder, cut wheat and oats & with a cradle, broke young stock to harness and saddle; in fact went all of the usual farm paces of all kinds. The boys of my acquaintance did as I did. The historians who say Southern white men did not work before the Civil War belong to the Annanias Club.

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 practiced medicine. I never saw him do any manual labor except to plow and hoe the garden, and prune fruit trees; this he allowed no one else to do. My mother did no manual labor except sewing, knitting and possibly weaving. I do no really know whether she was doing the weaving, on the few occasions when I saw her on the loom bench, or was only instructing the servant who regularly did the weaving.

14. Did your parents keep any servants? If so, how many?
Answer: They kept the six negro slaves above mentioned in Question 8.

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: All work done by decent people was respectable and honorable.

16. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: Most of them did. Some were rich enough to live without it, but a young man who followed no business was regarded as a loafer - a term of supreme contempt.

17. To what extent were there white men in your community leading lives of idleness and having other do their work for them?
Answer: Very few

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 was, as far as I know, little distinction among intelligent, decent people whether slave holders or non slave holders. The voluntary enlistments at the beginning of the Civil War show this. There were more non slave holders in the Confederate Armies than there were slave holders.

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 - a while man was a white man, in all rights and privileges the equal of any other white man.

20. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: Friendly

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 - if that subject were brought up it gave the non slave holder the advantage, as in the case of Andrew Johnson for Governor, Emerson Etheridge for Congress and other successful non slave holding candidates who purposely injected the negro question into their canvases.

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, excellent

23. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: Encouraged always unless they showed symptoms of abolitionism.

24. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: Common school, Academy and College. Remember that the community in which I was reared had superior educational facilities for that term.

25. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: In common school I do not know; in academy and college about six years.

26. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: The nearest was about 300 yards, the most distant was about 2 1/2 miles - college

27. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: Those mentioned in 24

28. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: Private about half the time, public the other half. The public fund was usually given to lengthen the term or cheapen the tuition charges of a private school.

29. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: About six or seven.

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: Usually men with women assistants.

32. In what year and month and at what place did you enlist the Confederate or of the Federal Government?
Answer: In April 1861 the company was formed at Friendship, Dyer County, Tennessee. We took the oath of military service at Jackson, Tennessee, May 3, 1861.

33. State the name of your regiment, and state the names of as many members of your company as you remember
Answer: The Regiment was the 12th Tennessee Infantry. Captain Marion Walker. 1st Lieut John Sanders, 2d Liut George Rice, 3d Liut G. R. McGee. Orderly Sergeant Ralph Sinclair, 2d Sergt. Ely Ward, 3d Jas Rice, 4th Sergt John Graham. Private soldiers or appointed corporal: Thomas Rice, Alvin Edwards, J. W. Nash, Burton Payne, Beverly Strange, John Davis, Charles Pate, James Jackson, James Perry, Houston Walker, Simon Perry, Alfred T. Fielder, Marion Fielder, Fletcher Fielder, Joseph Ferguson, Wm. A. Reese, Dock Reese, John Suddeth, Samuel Johnson.

34. After enlistment, where was your company sent first?
Answer: To camp of instruction at Union City, Tenn. Thence we went to Columbus, Ky.

35. How long after your enlistment before your company engaged in battle?
Answer: First engagement Nov. 7, 1861

36. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Belmont, Missouri, just across the Miss. River from Columbus.

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: In March 1862 we moved to Corinth, Miss. and on April 6th & 7th 1862 fought the Battle of Shiloh 0 a confederate victory April 6 and a Federal victory April 7. Other battles in which I took part were: Murfreesboro two days - nobody's victory but Confederate defeat in one day. 3. Kenesaw Mountain - a draw. 4. Jonesboro, Ga. Confederate defeated. 5. Peach Tree Creek, a draw. 6. Nashville, Confederate victory on first day, total Confederate rout on second day. Our Regiment was in a number of other battles in which I had no part, being often on detached service. Our Quartermaster and Comissary Departments were very poorly supplied hence our food, clothing and general equipment was much inferior to that of the enemy. We suffered from lack of supplies needed by an army. I was once in hospital - well treated. Never in prison.

38. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: Paroled at Meridian, Miss. April 29 I believe, not certain as to the day.

39. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: A freight train was going north that night on Moble & Ohio RR to get corn at egypt station for the destitute at Corinth. We asked the Provost Marshall for permission to ride on it. He refused and told us to walk. A detail of, I think, 11th Indiana was to go on the train to load corn. They took us in their ranks and smuggled us into the cars. From Egypt we rode on the corn to Corinth. There I found my friend Doc Fowlkes leading a "Confederate Mule" which he gave me and I rode him to my uncles home near Trenton Tenn. and then made a crop with his aid in plowing the land.

40. What kind of work did you take up when you came back home?
Answer: Farm work - Made four and 1/2 bales of cotton and 300 bushels corn in 1865, though I did not get home until May 4th. Next year, clerked in a general merchandise store, then went back to the school that I left to join the army and have been a teacher ever since. Three years at Millers Chapel, 1 year at Bells, 26 1/2 years at Trenton and 14 1/2 years in Jackson, my present home. I have never lived out of Tennessee since I was 10 years old.

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 the questions
Answer: First part is answered in No. 40. I am one of the Ruling Elders in the Christian Church in Jackson, and am County Revenue Commissioner for Madison County. Author of School History of Tennessee and one of the Charter Members of the State Teachers Association and one of the founders of Monteagle Sunday School Assembly.

42. Give the full name of your father: James Gentry McGee born Giles, Tenn atJuly 4, 1808 in the county of Ebenezer, Holmes County state of Mississippi.. He lived at _________.

Give also any particulars concerning him, as official position, war services, etc.; books written by, etc.
Answer: I know of only one official position that he ever held. He was local surgeon for one of the Regiments in the Mexican War.

43. Maiden name in full of your mother: Marian Ford - married Henry Bains who died in less than a year after the marriage, therefore my father was her second husband.; She was the daughter of (full name) Judge Rufus Ford, of the Probate Court and his wife (full name) Elizabeth Harland; who lived at in Yazoo County, Miss..

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: In the burning of my uncles house in 1868 all of our old family records and all my war relics were destroyed. I can give nothing more of maternal ancestry. What I give is my recollection of what was told me by my paternal grandfather who lived until I was 24 years old. His full name was Richard McGee and that was his father's full name. Richard McGee Sr. was a Scotch Irishman who came from Belfast to America in 1760, then about 19 years old. After his marriage to Gertrude Caloway (I don't know the year) he settled on a farm in Rockbridge County, Virginia where my grandfather was born Sept. 18, 1774. My Great grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary War (I do not know in what command). My Grandfather McGee says that all he can remember of the Revolution was his father's home-coming and his uniform and sword. My Grandfather McGee was an Ensign in Carroll's Regiment under Jackson's command in the War of 1812.