S. A. (Samuel A.) Swiggett

Born in Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1834, Samuel A. Swiggett later made his life in Iowa. His memoir says he was apprenticed as a tailor after his mother died when he was young, and later married and opened a general store in Blakesburg.

Swiggett is known for The Bright Side of Prison Life (1897), a Civil War memoir based on his service as a captain in the 36th Iowa Infantry. The book recounts his capture in 1864 and his imprisonment at Camp Ford in Texas, mixing wartime experience with a conversational, often unexpectedly humorous voice.

Because reliable biographical information on him is limited online, most modern references focus on that military service and memoir rather than on his full personal life. Even so, his writing remains a vivid eyewitness account of Union captivity during the Civil War.