All Quiet along the Potomac

The poem was based on newspaper reports of "all is quiet tonight" based on official telegrams sent to the Secretary of War by Major-General George B. McClellan following the First Battle of Bull Run. Beers noticed that the report was followed by a small item telling of a picket being killed. She wrote the poem that same morning she read it in September, 1861

In 1863 the poem was set to music by John Hill Hewitt, himself a poet, newspaperman, and musician, who was serving in the Confederate army.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_Along_the_Potomac_Tonight

Recording: The Confederacy (National Gallery Orchestra)1954

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.
'Tis 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 tonight,
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming,
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
O'er the light of the watch fires, are gleaming;
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night wind,
Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping,
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard over the army while sleeping.
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two in the low trundle bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack, and his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle 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 eye
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 shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark! Was it the night wind that rustled the leaves,
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looks like a rifle -- "Ah! Mary, good-bye!"
And the lifeblood is ebbing and splashing.
All quiet along the Potomac tonight,
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.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• American Civil War
• Civil War
• Secession
• Confederacy
• Dixie
• music songs
• Confederate

[2serveand2protect]

It reminds me of the German "All Quiet on the Western Front".

Beautiful song!

[patarthenry]

A solemn mood ,soulful, a little flower lifting its head in the trenches of war.