I was nearly four months old at the time of this man’s passing. I am proud to have been alive during his waning days. May he be resting in piece. ~ Editor

Julius Franklin Howell (January 17, 1846 – June 19, 1948) joined the Confederate Army when he was 16. After surviving a few battles, he eventually found himself in a Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. In 1947, at the age of 101, Howell made this recording at the Library of Congress.

Pictures were colorized and enhanced using AI optimization software. For the audio, I remastered it using noise gate, compression, loudness normalization, EQ and a Limiter.

This video is made for educational purposes for fair use under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976.

This was seriously amazing to hear. So glad someone way back than had the idea to audio record this mans life before it was too late. Up until now all 1st hand accounts of that era/century & wars I’ve only read in history books or diary’s or autobiographies etc.. Absolutely mind blowing. I wish though they asked a few questions about his grandparents & some of the stories they passed down to him, they probably lived during the time of our founding fathers & who knows they might’ve been around for the revolutionary war… crazy to think about. ~ Taylor.98

These recordings are absolutely fascinating. Even the smallest parameters of the conversation are incredible. Just hearing the ways of the English language being spoken nearly 200 years ago, how similar it was to nowadays. Even hearing the small gaps in his sentencing to think of the next words to say is so real to me and was truly amazing to hear. I don’t know… it is little things like that in which prove how different yet so similar we are to each other all throughout history. ~ Nick Baxter

AMAZING how he got to live to see the Telephone, Flight, Car’s, Radio, Motion Pictures, The Great War and WWII and the Nuclear age!! What a life!! GOD BLESS YOU SIR!! I pray you are enjoying PARADISE THESE PAST 80 YEARS!! What an AWESOME LIFE this man lived!!! The Change’s of the world in what he saw! He fought in the Civil War what could he have thought of how the Country became in 1944 on June 6th if he could have sat on a destroyer watching the D-DAY Landing’s on OMAHA BEACH With both Grandchildren of the North and South fighting side by side to Defeat Hitler?? What was his reaction if told In just those first 6:00 hours of fighting on Omaha alone during that first wave that there was more Gun and Artillery fire laid than the entire American Civil War?? Or knowing 1 BOMB dropped from an Airplane BOMBER had just caused the Destruction of an Entire City and killed 60,000 people 25,000 incinerated immediately!! ~ Vincent Adams