Thanks to the kindness of Jim Martin, yesterday I received the service cards relating to Francis M. Bates of the 3rd Georgia, and one card actually indicates that he was "discharged as a Marylander." So it gets more confusing anyway. Even if he was from Boston, or Maryland, why would they want to discharge him because he "never acquired a domicile," as I have seen many other examples of Confederates who were born overseas or in other Northern states.
Despite all this, I am quite convinced that this was our actor, Francis Marion Bates, who died in Melbourne, in 1879.
I was reading the inquest report into his death yesterday, and his death is attributed to heart disease, accelerated by a fall off an embankment. This despite a later New York Times report, at the time of his widow in the early 1900's that states he died at the hands of Australian bushrangers.