I have finally been able to confirm that Francis Marion Bates, who was born in Boston, in 1835, and died in Australia, in 1879, never ever served in any regiment from Alabama, during the war, as claimed by a so called researcher, at his web site, at www.acwv.info. A short biography of Bates, in an Australian newspaper, in 1874 (a few months after he arrived in Australia with his wife and first daughter) indicated that Bates had been in Richmond, Virginia at the start of the war, but had continued in his acting career, and did so throughout the war, mainly in the southern states, as he espoused the cause. The Richmond Daily Dispatch has three entries in 1862 and 1863, which show him in a couple of acting parts in Richmond, and also his marriage to Eliza Wren, in November, 1863, in Richmond, as well.
Unfortunately the false data about Bates' service in an Alabama Regiment has also been placed at the FIND A GRAVE web site. The person or persons who served in one or more Alabama regiments, named F.M. Bates, were entirely different persons altogether, as they were born in latter years.