George Job Huntley was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, on April 17, 1841. He was the oldest of the nine children of William Lawrence Huntley and Sara Jane Collins. He was a farmer and a teacher before the Civil War began. He was never married. Huntley enlisted in Company I of the 34th Regiment North Carolina Troops on November 10, 1861. He was wounded at Gaines Mills during the Seven Days Battles in Virginia in late June 1862 and also may have been wounded during the battle of Second Manassas in August or September 1862. On the first day of the battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (July 1, 1863), Huntley received a mortal wound. He died the next day (July 2, 1863) at age 22 after twenty months service in the Confederate army. The letters of George Job Huntley have been published in the book, The Cry is War, War, War, edited and annotated by Michael W. Taylor (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside, 1994). Huntley's letters comprise the first half of the book, with the second half consisting of the correspondence of a fellow soldier in the same regiment, Burwell Thomas Cotton.