Charles Patton Dimitry (July 31, 1837 – November 10, 1910) was an American author, poet, journalist, inventor, historian and Confederate soldier.

He was mixed race Creole and the second son of author and diplomat Alexander Dimitry and also the grandson of Marianne Celeste Dragon.

His catalog features a massive amount of literary publications one of his most notable works was The House in Balfour Street published in 1868.

Charles worked for newspaper publications across the country including New Orleans, New York City, and Washington DC.

In another instance, the Committee on Prose Compositions of the Press Convention on February 26, 1884, in New Orleans awarded Charles a prize of $50 for his essay The Massacre of St.

Charles and several of his siblings were born in Washington while their father Alexander was the principal clerk for the Southwest postal department.

Charles' father was the first person of color appointed superintendent of public education in the state of Louisiana from 1847 to 1854.

Because of abusive racism and the disqualification of interracial marriages in the late 1700s and early 1800s in New Orleans Charles' grandmother Marianne Céleste Dragon passed as a white person on public records.

The court sided with Marianne allowing her to keep her property and her white status, ruling that the family had been in possession of the right to be categorized as a person not born of Negro extraction.

[10][11][12] The second incident occurred when Charles was around 16 years old in 1853, his first cousin George Pandely was running for a seat on the Board of Assistant Aldermen.

The assistant aldermen was responsible for urban infrastructure in New Orleans including streets and sidewalks a seat similar to a city council member.

Pandelly won the case but no damages were rewarded, and the Pandely Affair inspired later generations to create a new genealogy where they claimed descent from a mythical, Indian princess of the Alibamu tribe named Malanta Talla.

[19] Charles attended Georgetown University in the late 1850s while his father and brother John Bull Smith Dimitry were diplomats.

After the war, around October 1865 Charles was arrested by Union forces for writing slander against the White House of the United States government in the Commercial Bulletin in Richmond, Virginia.

In June 1863, The Magnolia Weekly awarded Charles the $500 prize for the best original serial story entitled Guilty or Not Guilty and the Committee on Prose Compositions of the Press Convention on February 26, 1884, in New Orleans awarded Charles a prize $50 for his essay The Massacre of St. Andre.