Charles Smedley

Born in 1836, Charles Smedley served as a corporal in Company G of the 90th Pennsylvania Volunteers during the American Civil War. He was captured shortly after the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864, and the diary he kept during his imprisonment became the basis of Life in Southern Prisons.

That book traces his experience through Confederate prison camps and is remembered for its firsthand detail about hunger, disease, and the daily strain of survival. Because it comes from a soldier writing so close to the events themselves, it has lasting value both as a memoir and as a window into the war.

Smedley died in 1864, the same year as the events he described, so his writing carries the weight of a life cut short. What remains is a direct, human record of endurance that helps modern readers feel the reality behind Civil War history.