Background
He was born on January 1, 1819 in Saco, Maine, United States, son of Ether and Anna (Foster) Shepley.
judge military politician statesman
He was born on January 1, 1819 in Saco, Maine, United States, son of Ether and Anna (Foster) Shepley.
At the age of fourteen he entered Dartmouth College, graduating in 1837.
After reading law for a time with his father and at Harvard, he began practice in Bangor in 1839 as the partner of Joshua W. Hathaway. In 1844 he moved to Portland where he became successively the partner of Joseph Howard and of John W. Dana.
He was appointed, November 8, 1848, United States district attorney for Maine, but lost the position the following year with the change in national politics. President Pierce in 1853 and President Buchanan in 1857 reappointed him to the office, which he held until June 1861.
Shepley was a delegate at large to the National Democratic Convention in Charleston in 1860 and attended its adjourned session in Baltimore, supporting Douglas in the campaign.
An acquaintance, begun at this convention, with Benjamin F. Butler, led, after the outbreak of the Civil War, to the inclusion of the 12th Regiment of Maine Volunteers, of which Shepley was colonel, in Butler's New England division in the New Orleans campaign. After the capture of that city, May 1, 1862, Butler appointed Shepley its military commandant; in June 1862 he became military governor of Louisiana, and in July was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general.
After the election of Georg Michael Decker Hahn to the governorship, by the Unionist portion of the state, Shepley was assigned to the command of the district of Eastern Virginia, in May 1864. In 1865 he was chief of staff of the XXV Army Corps under General Weitzel and when the latter occupied Richmond, was appointed military governor of that city. Years afterward he contributed an article on "Incidents of the Capture of Richmond, " to the Atlantic Monthly (July 1880).
He resigned his commission July 1, 1865, and returned to the practice of law in Portland. On December 22, 1869, he was appointed circuit judge of the United States court.
He died of Asiatic cholera, after an illness of four days.
As district attorney Shepley George Foster attracted much attention in the murder case of United States vs. Holmes, as a United States federal judge he made up a large proportion of his well-known decisions on equity and patent cases. He sucessfully participated in American Civil War and was promoted to the rank of the general, served as the first military governor of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. He wrote about his experience in the war in his exclusive article "Incidents of the Capture of Richmond".
In 1877 he joined St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Portland.
He was Democratic from 1848 to 1854, later he entered Republican party (1854–1878).
He was vehement and impetuous, and did not possess an exploring mind.
Shepley married on July 24, 1844, Lucy A. Hayes, who died in 1859; and on May 23, 1872, he married Helen Merrill. He had 2 daughters.
