Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Robert Nash Ogden

(1839-    )
Louisiana

"ROBERT NASH OGDEN, a lawyer by profession, was born in Baton Rouge, La., May 5, 1839. He served with distinction in the Confederate army. Since the reconstruction era, he has been prominent in the politics of Louisiana, and especially during Governor Wiltz's administration, when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives of the State. He is best known as an orator, but has confined his talents to no one field. He devotes much of his leisure to light literature, and has written an interesting novel, entitled Who Did It? (1886). He is, at this writing, one of the Judges of the Court of Appeals of New Orleans." [Thomas M'Caleb, The Louisiana Book: Selections from the Literature of the State 574 (New Orleans: R.F. Straughan, Publisher, 1894)][online text]

Ogden "was a man of recognized oratorical powers, which showed at their best during political campaigns. He was one of the principal speakers supporting Samuel Douglas McEnery during the memorable, statewide and strenuous anti-lottery fight, when Hon. McEnery was a candidate for governor in 1892. He was one of the judges of the Circuit Court of Appeals, New Orleans, serving two terms of four years each, and then retired from politics, and engaged in the practice of law." [Source: Ogden Family profile, in Alcée Fortier (ed.), 3 Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form 336-339 (Century Historical Association, 1914)]

[Ogden served as speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1880 to 1882.]

Percy T. Ogden
a biographical sketch of Ogden's grandson

Writings

Robert N. Ogden, Who Did It? A Novel (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger / New Orleans: J. A. Gresham, 1870)