The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-03-11

! have no objection to being quoted. one
thing / am sure you may rely on conil-
| IDENTIFY. Fontaine is such a serene, pic
turesque, uncomfortable romancer that no
one who has known him a week would
| take his word for any disputed point OF
| fact. l will give you one instance out OF
| many that have come to my personal
| knowledge. In March last 1 heard him
| tell a story TO a number of the mem bers
of che bar here to the effect that at the
second battle of Manassas or Bull Run
| or al some of the other minor engage
ments about that time, Gen. Robert F.
Lee sitting on his horse, watch in hand
saw him, Fontaine kill forty United States
artillerymen with his rifle in sixty min
| utes, or sixty men in forty minutes
| l am not sure which, Gen. Lee Sim
| ing him while he doing such execution
| on the enemy"
That would seem to be pretty good evil
| dence that there has been such a man
as Lamar Fontaine. Further proof to
his existence came in June, 1897, when the
| great Confederate reunion was held in
| Nashville. A grizzled war veteran ap-
| peared there and said he was Lamar Fon-
| tame from Mississippi He told the same
| story about picking off Yankees for Gen
| Lee only this time the record was sixty
| men in sixty minutes. He declared thai
he was in twenty-seven pitched battles,
| ffty-eight skirmisheS and more than 100
| individual skirmishes He said he had
DtGH WOUNDED SlAl y-StN6n llliltS, tuli LNCh
of which wounds were in the lungs Twice
was he able to look, by aid of mirror,
| irto apertures in his breast and see his
| own heart beating. Once he struggled dis
| patches and 10000 percussion caps into
| Vicksburg, but to get in he had to fight
| his way against $50 Yankees who rose up
| against him and fired on him. He was
| shot in half a dozen places. His leg was
| shattered and so proud was he of his
| military prowess that as matter of good
| faith he took the barrel of the gun with
| which he killed sixty men in sixty minutes
| and used it as the core of his artificial
| leg. And then, to round out the proof of
his wonderful courage and achievements
| it was said in Nashville that he produced
a letter purporting to have been signed
| by Stonewall Jackson, saying:
| Il believe that during his service with
me as a sharpshooter Lamar Fontaine
killed more of the enemy than were killed
b. any company in my command"
After all that, who can doubt that there
| has been such a person as Lamar Fon-
tame? And who can doubt If he talked
| the way trustworthy persons say he has
talked, that he actually served with Jou-
bert in the Civil War, although Joubert
| was never in this country? And who can
doubt that he saw Old Barbara Fritchie
stop Stonewall Jackson at the head of
his troops and cry, Shoot If you must"
etc.
Mrs. Beers wrote the "All Quiet poem
on Sept %, 1861. She read 1t that day 90
her son, C. Eliot Beers, a boy of IA, and
made change in it at his suggestion. 1t
was printed on Nov. 80, 1861, in Harper's
| Weekly, and Mr.. Beers has documen tary
proof that his mother wrote it in a copy
of a receipt which Harper & Bros. still
have, and which reads:
Received, New York, Dec. 16 1861, from
Messrs. Harper & Bros, five dollars which
sum. with ten dollars received Dec. 4, is
~
the Picket Guard Down Behind the Saw
Mill and The Mtten.'
"$15 Ethel Lynn Beers"
The poem, picket Guard" or "An Quiet"
could be applied to either the North or
South. 1t was copied widely, both at
home and abroad and mostly anonymous
ly. It's authorship was soon ascribed to
various persons, but Mrs. Beers didn't
regard the matter with much seriousness,
The authorship was passed upon by sew
eral publishers and others, and all agreed
that her claims were just. She lived al
Orange. ". j., in the later years of her
life. She was known as a most exem-
play woman, and no one who knew her
could doubt the justice of her title 10 the
ownership of the poem. She wrote doz-
ems of poems of similar grade-she was a
| prolific versifer-and in 1879 collection
of them wes published by Porter & Coates
, of. Philadelphia under the title IAN Quiet
Along the Potomac" The first copies of
, the books reached Mrs. Beers a few days
before her death She had been fight
ing her mortal illness until she might see
. her poems in book form. One of the
copies of the book, it is said, was bound
in crepe and buried with her.
Mrs. Beers wrote the IAN Quiet" poem
Ist of those in the book, because of a
headline in the New York Herald on Sept
} %. 1861. When she came to the breakfast
table in a New York boarding house on
: that day a woman sitting opposite to her
read the headline from the Herald IAN
Quiet Along the Potomac" to which Mrs
!. Beers, reading from her paper, replied,
Yes, except a poor picket shot" That
+ very morning she wrote the poem wi : h
two endings. She asked her 14-year-oId
, son, c. Eliot Beers, which ending he liked
2 best, and he chose the one which she
used, THE plcket's off duty forever"
t The poem on that account was called
l at first The Picket" Here It is:
All Quiet Along the Potomac To-
night.
! | "All quiet along the Potomac tonight -
= Except here and there a stray picket
e Is shot as he walks on his beat to and
l BY a riheman hid in the thicket.
! It's nothins-a private or two now ana
then
1 Will not count in the news of a battle.
f Not an officer lost!-only one Of the men
] Moaning out all alone, the death-rattle
: :
f "All quiet along the Potomac tonight -
r Where soldiers lie peacefully dream
ing:
And their tents in the rays Of the clear
autumn moan
. And the light of their watch-fires are
cleaning.
A tremulous sigh as the gentle night
wind
T. Through the forest leaves softly is
. creeping:
y | While the stars up above, with their GIT
S stering eyes,
Keep guard-for the army is sleeping.