Joyce --

Based on name and location, he could be the William R. Hayes on roll with Company "E", 34th Tennessee Regiment.

During the antebellum period relatively few Southerners stayed in one place for decades. Farming methods gradually wore out the soil and obliged them to move on. Before the war there always seemed to be better, cheaper land available to the west and south.

Destruction and ruin brought about by Federal victory forced Southerners to start over somewhere else. That may account for the Lewis County move.

Copies of military service files are available here --