All Quiet Along the Potomac

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All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight ( "all the peaceful Potomac tonight") is an American poem and song from the American Civil War , which "The Picket Guard" ( "The field item") from the original as Ethel Lynn Beers was published.

In this first version it appeared on November 30, 1861 in the newspaper "Harper's Weekly", as the author only the initials "EB" were given. It was not until July 4, 1863, that the newspaper informed its readers who was hiding behind it. Beers is said to have got the idea for the poem when she read the message "all is quiet tonight" in the newspaper one September morning in 1861, a line from an official telegram, General George B. McClellan sent to the Secretary of Defense after the Battle of Bull Run . Subsequently, a small article in the newspaper mentioned that a field guard was killed that same night. Beers finished the poem that same morning. In it she complains that everything was quiet that night, although a field guard lost his life.

The text is often ascribed to Lamar Fontaine , but this is considered very controversial.

In 1863 John Hill Hewitt , himself a poet, journalist, musician and soldier of the Confederate, set the poem to music.

The song inspired probably the titling of the English translation of the novel " Quiet on the Western " ( "All Quiet on the Western Front") by Erich Maria Remarque .

text

The Picket Guard ; NC Wyeth , illustration to the poem.

"The Picket-Guard," Harper's Weekly , 1861:

"All quiet along the Potomac," they say,
"Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
'T is nothing - a private or two, now and then,
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost - only one of the men,
Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle. "
All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
Or the light of the watch fires are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night wind
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping;
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard - for the army is sleeping.
"And thinks of the two on the low trundle-bed." - Confederate illustration to the poem
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gently with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother, may Heaven defend her!
The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips - when low, murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken;
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree, -
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shade of the forest so dreary.
The Picket is Off Duty Forever - James E. Taylor, illustration to the poem.
Hark! was it the night wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle– "Ha! Mary, good-by!"
And the life blood is ebbing and plashing.
All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
The picket's off duty forever.

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