DESCRIPTION: On episode 32 of Veteran Voices: The Oral History Podcast, we have a conversation with Jay Paisley, author of The Huffman Letters: Civil War Letters to Beaver County, Pennsylvania. 

“In 1861, sixteen year old William Henry Huffman enlisted in the Union Army,” writes Jay Paisley, chronicler of Huffman’s family letters.  “Like Henry Fleming, from Stephen Crane’s classic fictional novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Huffman did his duty.  Reading his letters, you will see the Civil War through the eyes of a real soldier, not a fictional character.”

Henry Huffman of Darlington Township, Beaver County, served with the 100th Pa Regiment (Roundheads) based in Lawrence County, he participated in over 20 battles, including Fredericksburg and Vicksburg, and he was a prisoner of war.  For the rest of his life, Huffman suffered the effects of war.

“The more things change, they more they stay the same,” Jay comments, referring to Huffman’s struggle to collect on his veteran’s disability pension — a meager sum that today would equal less than $300 a month.

Born in 1844, Huffman led a very long life as a gentleman farmer and activist in veterans’ causes.  At 92, he died in 1936 under the care of a veterans hospital in Florida; it was a life of first hand historical experience and knowledge spanning the lives of Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler.

SEE ALSO:

Little Beaver Historical Society
Little Beaver Historical Society Podcast
Veteran Voices: The Oral History Podcast

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