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This collection is made up of pension, Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), and other papers of Civil War veteran Private William E. Coffman of Company A, 6th Pennsylvania Reserves/35th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. The 123 items include pension applications, correspondence from pension lawyers, and printed materials such as advertisements, ephemeral items, broadsides, circulars, and cards dating largely between 1885 and 1891. Most of the printed items are solicitations directed toward Civil War veterans generally and GAR members particularly.

This collection is made up of pension, Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), and other papers of Civil War veteran Private William E. Coffman of Company A, 6th Pennsylvania Reserves/35th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. The 123 items include pension applications, correspondence from pension lawyers, and printed materials such as advertisements, ephemeral items, broadsides, circulars, and cards dating largely between 1885 and 1891. The printed items are mostly solicitations directed toward Civil War veterans generally and GAR members particularly.

William E. Coffman's papers date from December 18, 1875, to September 17, 1891, with the bulk of the collection between May 21, 1885, and September 17, 1891. Included are 53 documents and letters pertaining to Coffman's pension, five documents related to the 1886 National Encampment of the GAR in San Francisco, three pamphlets reporting on Pennsylvania's soldiers' orphan schools, a GAR Post 250 kepi, 48 printed items (including advertisements, broadsides, ephemera, circulars, and cards) sent to Coffman as a Civil War veteran and commander of a GAR post, and 13 empty envelopes.

Coffman received correspondence from pension attorneys including James Boyd Robison, J. B. Cralle, Frank L. Hilton, Joseph H. Hunter, Milo B. Stevens, I. D. Porter, and John W. Morris. In one letter George W. Stevens warned Coffman to refrain from sending fees to pension attorneys, namely I. D. Porter of Washington, D.C., without being sure that they are trustworthy. The materials sent by attorney John W. Morris of Washington, D.C., in 1886 include a printed Table of Pension Rates indicating the dollar amounts obtainable for specific disabilities and a printed advertisement Attention Officers and Soldiers Entitled to Extra Pay, Bounty or Pension that gives dollar amounts obtainable for different situations (noting that "Colored Volunteers and their Heirs are entitled to the same bounty as white").