PRISON PEN SKETCHES

n 1902, seven years before his death at age 66, Union veteran Ezra H. Ripple penned a memoir of his prison life for his “wife and children with no expectation of using it beyond the walls of our home,” as he stated in the introduction. Fortunately, however, that memoir found its way to publication in 1996 as , edited by Mark A. Snell. In the memoir, Ripple chronicled his life as a soldier in the 52nd Pennsylvania Infantry. His regiment was involved in the siege to capture Charleston, S.C., and on July 3, 1864, the 52nd participated in an