1. State your full name and present post office address:
Answer: B. F. Lawrence, Gallatin, Tenn
2. State your age now:
Answer: 85 years born March 5, 1837
3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: blank
4. Were you a Confederate or Federal soldier?
Answer: Confederate
5. Name of your Company?
Answer: Co I 4th Tenn Inft Stewarts afterwards Strahls Cheatams Division Army of Tenn (Brigade)
6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: blank
7. Give full name of your father: blank; born at blank;
8. Maiden name in full of your mother: blank; she was the daughter of: (full name) blank and his wife: (full name) blank; who lived at: blank.
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: blank
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: Did not own any
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: did not own any
13. State as near as you can the value of all the property owned by your parents, including land, when the war opened:
Answer: blank
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: blank
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 a farm, any kind of work that was to do.
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: blank
17. Did your parents keep any servants? If so, how many?
Answer: No
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 honorable respectable
19. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: blank
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 that I know of
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: Yes they all mingled together
22. At the churches, at the school, at public gatherings in general, did slaveholders and non-slaveholders mingle on a footing of equality?
Answer: Yes
23. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: All friendly
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: No
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: Yes. I bought one myself
26. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: Encouraged
27. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: Good common school
28. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: I went to seven different teachers
29. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: one and a half mile
30. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: Good common school
31. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: Private
32. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: 6 or 8 months
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: blank
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 joined a military on at Dyersburg in the spring 1861. Mustered in the service of Tenn at Germantown Tenn May 15, 1861. 4th Tenn Inft Confederate. R. P. Neely Col. L. F. Strahl Lt Col. J. F. Henry Maj. O. F. Strahl was my 1st Capt.
36. After enlistment, where was your Company sent first?
Answer: Randolph Tenn on the Mississippi River
37. How long after enlistment before your Company engaged in battle?
Answer: 6th & 7th of April 1862
38. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Shilo
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 were stationed on the Mississippi River the first year. After first battle we went to Tupelo Miss from there to Chattanoog and then on to Braggs Kentucky Campaign
40. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: I was captured at Nashville Dec 16 1864
41. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: I was paroled at Point Lockout Md June 28 1865. Reaching Gallatin Tenn July 5 1865
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: I married Miss Mary F. Kirk, Dec 18, 1867. We raised a family of six children. We lived happily together forty-five years and five months. May 22 1913 she went home. I am just living on hoping and wishing to meet her on the other side.
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:blank
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:My Co. is all dead. If there is one living I don't know who it is nor where he is. I went through the war from the 13th of May 1861 to June 28 1865. I was in everything the regt was in except Shiloh never was wounded bad enough to leave the field never was in a hospital in my life. I never smoked a pipe took a chew of tobacco or was drunk or played a card, or bet a cent on anything
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: C. S. Douglass, Gallatin Tenn
J. B. Malone, Gallatin Tenn
J. A. Soper, Gallatin Tenn
W. P. Baker, Gallatin Tenn
R. P. Estes, Gallatin Tenn
M. E. Head, Gallatin Tenn
D. F. Barry, Gallatin Tenn
E. S. Paine, Gallatin Tenn
H. C. Haynes, Gallatin Tenn
W. H. B. Saturwhile, Gallatin Tenn
Jas H. Bate, Gallatin, Tenn