1. State your full name and present Post Office address
Answer: John Henry West, Newbern, Dyer Co., Tenn.
2. State your age now
Answer: 90 yrs. will be on the 3d of August
3. In what State and county were you born?
Answer: Tenn., Sumner Co.
4. In what State and county were you living when you enlisted in the service of the Confederacy, or of the Federal Government?
Answer: Caloway Co., Kentucky
5. What was your occupation before the war?
Answer: Wagoner hauling tobaco
6. What was the occupation of your father?
Answer: Blacksmith
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: no
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:____________________________
10. State as near as you can the value of all the property owned by your parents, including land, when the war opened
Answer:____________________________
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:
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: Helped Father in blacksmith shop some. White men who owned slaves did not work on farm, some did. I never knew anything about farming then.
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 worked in the blacksmith shop done general blacksmith work. Mother did all of the house work such as cooking, washing, ironing, crding, spining, weaving and making clothes.
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, most asurdly we were all workers the farmers had all kinds of workings that is they would invite their neighbors to help rolling logs, shucking corn
16. Did the white men in your community generally engage in such work?
Answer: they did with a vim. I have been to them workings and then we would dance.
17. To what extent were there white men in your community leading lives of idleness and having other do their work for them?
Answer: no, that might of course the women would have quiltings and would cook a big dinner then the youngsters engage in a dance at night.
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: As a rule the majority of slave owners seemed to think you wasent mutch if you dident own slaves, no they dident mingle freely with white people that had to do their own work.
19. At the churches, at the schools, at public gatherings in general, did slaveholders and non-slaveholders mingle on a footing of equality?: Answer: no as a rule each class was mostly seperate of course some slave holders were friendly and sociable.
20. Was there a friendly feeling between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in your community, or were they antagonistic to each other?
Answer: I dont remember any antagonism between the two parties
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: yes the slave owner was shown favor the non slave owner was rarely elected
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: no it was almost imposible
23. Were poor, honest, industrious young men, who were ambitious to make something of themselves, encouraged or discouraged by slaveholders?
Answer: of course there was difference in men some was kind and encouraged the honest ambitious young men some thought them selves above taking notice of poor people
24. What kind of school or schools did you attend?
Answer: country school there were no free school in them days
25. About how long did you go to school altogether?
Answer: I guess twelve months all together
26. How far was it to the nearest school?
Answer: about 2 miles
27. What school or schools were in operation in your neighborhood?
Answer: only one
28. Was the school in your community private or public?
Answer: public
29. About how many months in the year did it run?
Answer: 3 months
30. Did the boys and girls in your community attend school pretty regularly?
Answer: as a rule they did
31. Was the teacher of the school you attended a man or a woman?
Answer: one woman and the next 2 times a man
32. In what year and month and at what place did you enlist the Confederate or of the Federal Government?
Answer: the year 61 September enlisted Union City, Tenn.
33. State the name of your regiment, and state the names of as many members of your company as you remember
Answer: 33rd Tenn. W. F. Marbery was Captain. Job Stublefield, Barnett Stublefield, Iverson Stublefield, John Allen, William Walker, J. C. Stublefield, Bob Stublefield, Jim Bucie, John Bucie, George Bucie, John E----s, Pink Hubbard, newt Smith.
34. After enlistment, where was your company sent first?
Answer: at Columbus, Ky.
35. How long after your enlistment before your company engaged in battle?
Answer: Seven months
36. What was the first battle you engaged in?
Answer: Shilo
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 the first battle went to Corinth, Miss. and drilled then the battle of Murfreesboro lasted 2 days then the battle of Perryville lasting 4 hours hurt heavily in camp We were poorly clad. We slept on the ground in the tent. We eat corn bread and sometimes pulled beef. Yes, exposed to cold, hunger and diseases. Was in field hospital was in Rock Island prison 15 months.
38. When and where were you discharged?
Answer: Was payrolled at Richmond, Va. about the 12th day of May 1865
39. Tell something of your trip home:
Answer: I walked home had to sleep out of doors. Was one month on the road. Wasent alowed to sleep even on the porch or in an out house had terable experience.
40. What kind of work did you take up when you came back home?
Answer: my old trade hauling tobaco. When I got able in a short while I married then went in to merchantile business in a few years went to farming am conected with the Church of Christ have been elder for years.
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 had misfortune bad health am now on invalid dependent on my pensin and it does not meet needs.
42. Give the full name of your father: Isham Hodges West born _________ at_________ in the county of Sumner Co. state of Tennessee. He lived at _________.
Give also any particulars concerning him, as official position, war services, etc.; books written by, etc.
Answer:_________
43. Maiden name in full of your mother: Mary Ann Clay; She was the daughter of (full name) John Clay and his wife (full name) Elizabeth; who lived at Sumner Co., 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: This is dictated by John H. West. Written by his daughter, Mrs. J. W. Scott, as he is unable to write. He cannot remember enough about his ancestors to be of any use.