Scott here with another episode of History Unplugged.

Today we're looking at the life of William Aspenwalt, known as Roving Bill.

You spent decades wandering America as a hobo in post-Sovah war America.

Aspenwalt was many things.

He was a child soldier, a lady's man, a mechanic, a drunkard, a husband married five times.

Each of these descriptions capture an aspect of his life, but they don't do him justice.

They don't explain how he became one of the most unlikely folk heroes of pre-World War

America.

Aspenwalt's story begins when he was severely wounded and left for dead, while fighting

for the Union in the Battle of Champion Hill, one of the bloodiest battles of the Americans

of the war.

He recovered from his wounds, but lived for the next 60 years with shrapnel embedded in

his brain and right arm.

After the war, due to what we now recognize as PTSD, he wandered throughout the United

States for the rest of his life, making friends, working hard, and then pulling up stakes

when it all became too comfortable.

The Discussed History is today's guest, Owen Clayton, author of Roving Bill Aspenwalt,

dispatches from a hubo in post-Sovah war America.

We look at the realities of living on the road as well as the challenges Bill faced dealing

with his lingering more injuries, both mental and physical.

Finally, we understand why so many people supported the temperance movement in Prohibition

in the 1920s, because they saw so many civil war vets suffering from PTSD, and then crippling

...