Richard Realf

Richard Realf (14 June 1832, Framfield, East Sussex, England – 28 October 1878, Oakland, California) was a poet who lived in many places throughout the United States, and whose work was informed by these travels. An obituary called him "a singularly unhappy man".

Early in 1862 he enlisted in the 88th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, with which he served through the American Civil War. Some of his best lyrics were written in the field, and were widely circulated. After the war he was commissioned in the United States Colored Troops, whose officers were all white, and in 1866 was mustered out with the rank of Captain and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. In June 1865 he had married Sophia Emery Realf, née Graves, at Valparaiso, Indiana.

In 1868 he established a school for freedmen in South Carolina, and a year later was made assessor of internal revenue for Edgefield district. He resigned this office in 1870, returned to the North and became a journalist and lecturer, residing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was an editorial writer for the Pittsburgh Commercial newspaper from 1870 to 1876. In 1873, he delivered a poem before the Society of the Army of the Cumberland and in 1874 wrote one for the Society of the Army of the Potomac. He was a described as a brilliant talker and a fine orator. Among his lectures were "Battle-Flashes" and "The Unwritten Story of the Martyr of Harpers Ferry". His most admired poems are "My Slain", "An Old Man's Idyll", "Indirection", and the verses that he wrote just before he took the poison that ended his life.

Suicide After a failed attempt the previous evening, Realf killed himself by taking chloral hydrate and laudanum at the Windsor House in Oakland, California, on October 28, 1878. He committed suicide in consequence of an unfortunate marriage and an imperfect divorce. He appointed as his literary executor Colonel Richard J. Hinton, who, after an initial gathering of the poet's scattered fragments performed by Ina Coolbrith, completed the collection of Realf's poems for publication, together with a biographical sketch, in 1888. Realf is buried in Section OSA, Row 72, Grave #4 of the San Francisco National Cemetery located in the Presidio of San Francisco, California.