The pension account is first-hand but dates from many years after the war. It's one man's memory of long-distant events. On the other hand, the service record was written during actual events by two different first-hand sources. 1) The soldier's first sergeant who reported him missing during the raid in middle Tennessee, October 1863. 2) Clerks responsible for Federal prisoner-of-war records also note him captured at this time.

I'm not suggesting that we discount the pension account completely. However, we do know for certain that the soldier was not captured at Davis Gap and sent to prison.