All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight

All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight ( " all quiet along the Potomac tonight " ) is an American poem and song from the American Civil War, which was originally known as "The Picket Guard " ("The field item" ) by Ethel Lynn Beers has been published.

In this first version it appeared on November 30, 1861 in the newspaper " Harper's Weekly", as the author, only the initials " EB " is specified. It was only on July 4, 1863 told the newspaper with their readers, who hid behind it. Beers should have gotten the idea for the poem, as it on a September morning in 1861, the statement "all is quiet tonight" ( " everything is quiet tonight " ) read in the newspaper, a statement from an official telegram that General George B. McClellan after the Battle of Bull Run sent to the Secretary of Defense. Subsequently, it was mentioned in the newspaper in a small article, that the same night a picket was killed. That same morning Beers wrote the poem to an end. In it she laments the message, everything was quiet that night, although a picket had to lose his life.

The text is often also attributed Lamar Fontaine, this is viewed as being very controversial.

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

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

Text

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