Search >> Shepherd, Nathaniel Graham ( N.G. ) (1835-1869)

Artist, Illustrator, Poet.

Nathaniel Graham Shepherd (also Shepard) was born in New York City and grew up to study poetry there. In pursuit of artistic growth, he moved to Georgia for a number of years to teach drawing. Upon returning to New York, Shepherd made his livelihood in the insurance business while still pursuing poetry in his leisure time. Among his better-received poems are "The Dead Drummer-Boy," "The Roll-Call," and "A Summer Reminiscence." Theater critic and Pfaff’s biographer William Winter states that Shepherd’s name is one among a list of "names that shine, with more or less lustre, in the scroll of American poets, and recurrence to their period affords opportunity for correction of errors concerning it, which have been conspicuously made" (Old Friends 292).

Winter names Shepherd as one of the Bohemians who frequented Pfaff’s Cave and calls him “one of the most picturesque of human beings, a man of genius, whose poems, never yet collected, ought to be better known than they now are,--[who] was seldom absent from the evening repast, a festivity in which, contrary to general belief, the frugality of poverty was ever more clearly exhibited than the luxury of riches or the prodigality of revel" (Old Friends 88, 65). Shepherd was also later mentioned as one of the Bohemians at Pfaff’s "gossiped" about by Rufus B. Wilson in a "reminiscent letter to the Galveston News" (Current Literature 479). Like fellow Pfaffian Theodore Winthrop, Shepherd served as a Civil War correspondent, penning accounts for the New York Tribune. Unlike Winthrop and Fitz -James O’Brien, he managed to survive the war.

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References & Biographical Resources

"General gossip of authors and writers." Current Literature. 1888: 476-480. [more about this work]

Mentioned as one of the Bohemians at Pfaff's "gossiped" about by Rufus B. Wilson in a "reminiscent letter to the Galveston News." [pages: 479]

Lalor, Eugene T. The Literary Bohemians of New York City in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Ph.D. Dissertation, St. John's University, 1977. 364 p. [more about this work]

[pages: 16]

"Literary Notes." New York Saturday Press. 25 Jun. 1859: 2. [more about this work]

Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 1896. 96-107. [more about this work]

[pages: 103]

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Knopf, 1995. 671 p. [more about this work]

Also known by his initials N.G.; was a picturesque poet (377). [pages: 377]

Stansell, Christine. "Whitman at Pfaff's: Commercial Culture, Literary Life and New York Bohemia at Mid-Century." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 10.3 (1993): 107-126. [more about this work]

He is listed as one of the Pfaffian writers that "have fallen into obscurity." Stansell wonders how much influence these writers weilded on Whitman's literary career (108).

As one of the "Pfaffian regulars" who did "serious writing along with journalism", Shephard wrote poetry (114). [pages: 108,114]

Starr, Louis Morris. Bohemian Brigade; Civil War Newsmen in Action. New York: Knopf, 1954. 367 p. [more about this work]

Shepherd traveled with Sypher, a reporter for the Tribune, who was following the Army's movements after Fredericksburg. In listing Sypher's party, Starr inlcudes "Shepherd, a poet described by a collegue as 'dignified and doleful'" (197). The party witnessed the battle at Chancellorsville and their safety seemed to be in question for the duration of the battle. Sypher wrote a scathing criticism of the battle and the General, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, that the Tribune dissociated itself from. Hooker ordered Sypher's arrest and Shepherd "was told by his staff that criticism would have consequences ugly for the critic." Sheperherd wrote about this threat to Gay in a letter dated May 15,1863. After the battle and the recovery of his reporters, Gay, managing editor of the Tribune said to Shepherd "you betray want of energy, celerity, aptness to comprehend military movements and ability to report them" (200).

June 20,1863, Shepherd was arrested on Gen. Hooker's orders for what he claimed was "a very innocent letter" and was "ordered out of the army" (204).

Shepherd was among the Tribune staff present at Gettysburg (210). During the battle, Shepherd lost touch with the other Tribune men, like Gray, "and like him convinced that the paper was hopelessly beaten, had no horse and remained on the field" (216). [pages: 197,198,200,204,210,216]

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume V, Pickering-Sumter. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. [more about this work]

Brief biographical information for Shepherd including his role as a war correspondent, poet, and teacher. [pages: 495]

Winter, William. Old Friends; Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1909. 407 p. [more about this work]

He is listed by Winter as one of the Bohemians who frequented Pfaff's Cave (88).

Winter praises Shepherd's talent (65).

[pages: 65,88,292]