Melissa --

There's no way to conclusively 'prove' this, so you really must make decisions based on your best information. Then, if new information comes to light, reexamination becomes necessary.

If you know where someone lived in 1860 (county and state) and a little about them at that time (age, marital status and occupation), you're better able to match a service file to this person. If you also know something about other men by the same or similar name who lived nearby, you're in even better shape.

It sounds as if you've done your homework here.

After collecting this information, you can examine military records for possible name matches. If a soldier was recruited from your target county or in one which borders it, you can feel fairly confident that it's a good match. Helpful information may also be discovered in the file, such as age, residence, perhaps even the name of a parent or spouse. If not, you can eliminate a name from your search.

It should be worth ordering copies to see what's in them.