Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (1841-1906) was an American paleontologist and geologist who wrote extensively on the theological and scientific implications of the theory of evolution.

Shaler also served as a Union officer in the U.S. Civil War He was a fencer, a natural horseman and even in his fifties counted a day lost if he was not able to walk six miles. During the Civil War he recruited the 5th Artillery Battery for the Union and took rank as its captain in 1862. Shaler Battery, which he fortified when a Confederate army threatened Cincinnati in 1862, still can be seen at Evergreen Cemetery. Recurring bouts of severe bronchitis forced him to resign in 1864.

But the experiences of the war never left him, and late in life Shaler wrote a series of narrative poems about the war. The poems are remarkable although largely forgotten now. They are all the more remarkable in that Shaler had no prior history as a poet. R.L. Barth--himself a poet who has written often of experiences in war--has unearthed Shaler's poems, selected and edited the best of them, and provided an introduction, notes, and an appendix.