The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-08-23
GALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC"

In the "Poets and Poetry of Texas" a
volume of three hundred and fifty pages,
published two or three years ago and
edited by Sam II. Dixon, at present a
clerk in one of the state departments, is a
highly interesting article on the disputed
authorship of the famous poem "All Quiet
Along the Potomac" There are three
claimants of this, one of the finest, poems
in the English language - Major Lamar
Fontaine, native Texan, for
merly a resident of Austin; Doc
tor Oliver, and Mrs. Ethel Beers, of Mass
achusetts, whose volume, "All Quiet Along
the Potomac" and other poems, appeared
in 1879, shortly after her death. william
Cullen Bryant credited Mrs. Beers with
the authorship of this poem. But when
all the facts, including the statement of
Major FontGine himself, now resident of
Yazoo county, Miss, are considered, it
must be admitted that Mrs. Beers
never wrote this sublime piece of lyric
diction. Major Fontaines statement 10 a
letter to Mr.. Dixon, written in 1885, is so
straightforward and bears so many marks
of absolute and unvarnished truth, that
there can be no doubt he is the real
author of "All Quiet Along the Potomac
His story of the killing of the "stray
picket" his comrade, a Mr.. Moore,
belonging to the same cavalry
company as himself, while on
duty on the banks of the Potomac,
August 2, 1861, just after the first battle
of Manassas, which gave rise to the poem,
is life-like. The testimony of the captain
of his company, besides other corrobo-
rative evidence, fully establishes the claim
of Major Fontaine and the literary piracy
of Mrs. Beers.
But there is stronger testimooy still.
This is furnished by the poem itself.
No Massachusetts woman, and none but
soldier who had seen actual service could
have written the opening stanza:
"All quiet along the Potomac" they say
Except here and there stray picket
"Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro,
BY riheman hid in the thicket."
No civilian penny-a-liner could have
been inspired with the sentiments in the
following:
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread
AS he trampe from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two on The low trund bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
And again:
Harkl was 1t the night WING rustled the leaves?
Was 1t moonlight 30 wondrously flashing?
1t looked like r!fe-"Ha Mary good-bye!''
And the life blood is ebbiDg and splashing.
This, the most beautiful stanza ia the
poem, is the lang uage of man who saw
the red current from his friends veins
actually "splashing" at his feet, not that
of woman in an obscure parlor in Mas
sachusetts, who probably never saw
STRAY picket" on his lonely beat.
None but soldier, who was on the
scene and looked upon the "face of the
dead" picket Mr.. Moore, and saw "the
life blood ebbing and splashing," could
have produced the closing stauza, and one
of the best in this brilliant production:
All quiet along the Potomac tonight,
No sound save the rush of the river;
IL. RI ~
That picket's off duty forever!
With all the evidence before it literary
jury would undoubtedly find for Major
Fontaine, who has too much old Texas
blood in his veins to stOop to claim an
honor to which he was not entitled.