The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-05-13

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N Ia CERTAINLY a very remarkable fact
that n hea- beautiful poetic vera"s wefe
written by q soldier ~ The second Vira
eibia cavalry, NJ NJ laws auya they
were, they should have originally ap~
prared, NJ they DID APPEAR, In the Hum-
boz ~ HarpeTs Weekly publlshed In the
city ~ New York under date ~ Novens
brr NJ. isei. With the title The Picket
Ouard' ~ thus published they we're
signed with tho initials ~. b. and
from that tins until now u has generally
been assumed by prrpons protesting 10
know about such things and has re-
peatedly been asserted In the most
Trustworthy publications concerning cur
rent American literature that they were
written by ETHEL LYNN BEERS. Az that
time there was much public impatience
in the North nj the failure 81 the Federal
Army 10 move southwark. Day after
day over tho news from the seat Of war
appeared the journalistic headline AN
Quiet Along the Potomac For many
days and weeks no casualties were re-
ported except those which resulted from
desultory conflicts between the pickets
Of the opposing forces, aid there Ia no
doubt that these facts suggested the
composition Of the verses which Mr..
LAMB says a lady in Loudoun county,
Virginia, put to music, and which he
himself has often heard soldiers sing
around the campfire.
Reasoning from the historical facts
which we have briefly stated IL il evil
dent that Hdrper's Weekly, a strong anti
slavery journal published in the me-
tropolis Of the North, must have enjoyed
a very much wider circulation in the
South during the first year of the war
than we had hitherto supposed. 1t
would also appear. il Mr.. LAMB is right
in attributing the authorship of The
Picket Guard" to n soldier of the Second
Virginia Cavalry, that Mrs, BEERS and
this soldier must have been subjected
to some extraordinary telepathic inlu-
ence which led them TO write precisely
the same thing at the same time in widely
separated parts of the country; for we
can scarcely suppose that Mr., LAMBS
soldier of the Second Virginia Cavalry
composed these verses in New York.
There is, it is true, another explana-
ton, but we are loath to adopt it. Mr..
LAMB referred in his address to those
melancholy days in the past when
Truth was on the scarold and error on the
throne"
1t is just barely possible that error
was on the throne of Mr., LAMBS mental
makeup when he told the House of Rep
resentatives that "All Quiet Along the
Potomac was written by a soldier of
the Second Virginia Cavalry.