1. State your full name and present Post Office address
Answer: Thomas H. Higgason, Cottontown Tenn.
2. State your age now
Answer: 80 years
3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: Sumner County, 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: Sumner County, 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: None except one horse.
8. Did you or your parents own slaves? If so, how many?
Answer: Yes, Four, one female and three males
9. If your parents owned land, state about how many acres
Answer: 212 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: About $4,000 I guess. I don't remember how land and other things were valued at that time.
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: Five rooms, two story part log house, frame house built onto the log room. This was originally a one room log house.
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 general farm work. I did the same kind and as much work as any of the slaves.
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 crippled and could not do normal labor, but he was magistrate for years and years. Mother did, besides cooking, spinning and weaved cloth and made clothes for all the family.
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. In most cases the white people worked same as the slaves.
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: This was rarely the case. Generally the white people worked same as much as the colored.
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: In practically every instance I can call to mind, slaves owners mingled freely with those who did not own slaves.
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 there seems to be no difference between the two classes
20. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: A spirit of friendliness existed between them.
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: I cannot recall a case which by being a slaveowner, a candidate was helped to any great extent.
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: Opportunities were limited. Without outside assistance this would be very hard to do.
23. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer:blank
24. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: Just an ordinary country school with one teacher. Log house
25. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: Approximately 30 months ranging over a period of about 7 years
26. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: about 1 mile
27. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: Cairo and Walnut Grove. Both were public school. I believe
28. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: I believe there were public schools, altho not certain
29. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: Four or five months
30. Did the boys and girls in your community attend school pretty regularly?
Answer: Attendance was fairly good. Boys however had lots of work to do
31. Was the teacher of the school you attended a man or a woman?
Answer: A man
32. In what year and month and at what place did you enlist the Confederate or of the Federal Government?
Answer: In 1861 in Sumner County at Camp Trousdale
33. State the name of your regiment, and state the names of as many members of your company as you remember
Answer: 18th Tennessee Regt. Those I can remember are Tom Cox, Sumner Cox, Jim Soper, William Barrow, Bill Escue, Alex Bandy, ___ Bandy, Andy Hudson
34. After enlistment, where was your company sent first?
Answer: To Bowling Green, Ky
35. How long after your enlistment before your company engaged in battle?
Answer: Some eight or ten months I believe
36. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Battle of Fort Donelson
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: We were captured at Ft. Donelson. Sent to prison in Illinois. Remained there and received good treatment for seven months, were then exchanged, man for man, with Federal soldiers and sent to Atlanta it seems. Was in Battle of Murfressboro. Later in battle Chickamauga. This was a fierce battle in which I was mortally wounded. Was captured a second time where I remained for 9 months until war was over.
38. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: Discharged from prison. can't recall date or name of prison
39. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: I stayed with a family until I could get transportation money from home. It arrived in a week or ten days and then left for home.
40. What kind of work did you take up when you came back home?
Answer: Went back to work on the farm, trying to help my father regain what he had lost during thew war.
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: Have been on the farm since the war, was a shoe maker for years. Held no offices. Belong to the Methodist Church.
42. Give the full name of your father: John Overton Higgasson born blank at blank in the county of blank state of Virginia. He lived at Gallatin, Tenn.
Give also any particulars concerning him, as official position, war services, etc.; books written by, etc.
Answer:He was magistrate for years and years.
43. Maiden name in full of your mother: Nancy Stone; She was the daughter of Stephen Stone (full name) and his wife blank (full name); who lived at Gallatin, Tenn.
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:Ancestors came from Ireland. Were known there by name of Woodfork, name was changed when they came to America.
Higgason, Thos H., Pension No. 1194