Hi Faye:

Phillip PAUL of Rapides Parish would have been about 23 years of age in March of 1862. He would have been about 18 years of age when he married Ellen McGlothin based upon your Rapides Parish 1860 Federal Census data. You also wrote that Phillip was the son of Jacob PAUL III and was born in Rapides Parish.

Private P. W. PAUL was 30 years of age when he enrolled in Company D [Bossier Parish], 9th Louisiana Infantry. He was born "in the" North, was a shoe maker by occupation, a resident of "Fillemon," and married at the time of his enrollment in Bossier [Bossier City across from Shreveport] on March 10, 1862.

I looked at my current Louisiana highway map and discovered that there is a modern day community named "Fillmore" in Bossier Parish. "Fillemon" may be a 20th Century archivist's misreading of the muster roll data and the community name likely to have been "Fillmore." If this surmise is correct, then P. W. PAUL's enrollment in a local company fits the norm for Civil War recruiting, especially in the first two years of the war.

Company D, 9th Louisiana Infantry was a Bossier Parish based company [see Dr. Bergeron's "Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units 1861-1865" (LSU Press, 1989)]. It was part of the recruiting tradition at this early stage of the war to permit and encourage family, friends, and neighbors to serve together. Company B of the 9th Louisiana was the Stafford Guards recruited from communities in Rapides Parish. I would have expected Phillip PAUL to have been recruited for this company rather than Company D.

If you are not familiar with Louisiana geography, Bossier Parish is up the Red River in the northwestern corner of the state. Rapides Parish through which the Red River flows south is located in central Louisiana. Yes, travel via the Red River made communities in the two parishes easily accessible to each other, but ---.

Some other research questions: (1) Does the 1860 Rapides Parish census data tell you what Phillip PAUL's occupation was? [P. W. PAUL was a shoemaker]; (2) Does P. W. PAUL appear in the Bossier Parish 1860 Federal Census?

One never says never in genealogy research, BUT unless you can document how Phillip PAUL of Rapides Parish came to be a resident of Fillmore in Bossier Parish in March 1862, my tentative conclusion would be that these records belong to two different men.

Hugh Simmons