LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHARLES ALPHONSO SMITH GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE's Recumbent Statue AT WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY, BATTLE MONUMENT AT FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY. MODEL OF THe Monument TO THE WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY, DESIGNED BY Miss Frontispiece Facing page 6387 Facing page 6420 Facing page 6426 VIRGINIA DARE MONUMENT AT ROANOKE ISLAND Facing page 6432 FUGITIVE AND ANONYMOUS POEMS THE Southern States have contributed a large number of poems that belong under this head. In the case of anonymous poems and poems of disputed authorship, efforts have been made to ascertain the real facts and to present them impartially. No poem written by an author already represented in the preceding volumes has been admitted into this volume. The reader will not make the mistake, therefore, of expecting to find in this section of Volume XIV all or even a majority of the fugitive poems that the South has produced. The authors of such poems were frequently better known as prose writers than as poets and are represented, therefore, in Volumes I to XIII. ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT By THADDEUS OLIVER ["The authorship of this poem," says Mr. Rossiter Johnson, in his 'Famous Single and Fugitive Poems,' "has been disputed, but there is now no reason to doubt that it belongs to Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers, who resided in Orange, New Jersey, and died October 10, 1879." The authorship has also been claimed for Lamar Fontaine, of Texas. The evidence seems conclusive, however, for Thaddeus Oliver, of Twiggs County, Georgia. The poem was first published unsigned on October 21, 1861, "in a Northern newspaper." In Harper's Weekly, of November 30, 1861, it reappeared with Mrs. Beers's initials attached. Mr. Oliver, however, wrote the poem in August, 1861, and read it to several friends in camp with him in Virginia. In a letter dated "Camp 2d. Ga. Regt. near Centreville, Va., October 3, 1861," Mr. John D. Ashton of Georgia, writing to his wife, says: "Upon my arrival at home, should I be so fortunate as to obtain the hoped for furlough, I will read you the touching and beautiful poem mentioned in my letter of last week, 'All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night, written by my girlishly modest friend, Thaddeus Oliver, of the Buena Vista Guards." See also the 'Southern Historical Society Papers,' Volume VIII.] "All quiet along the Potomac," they say, "Except now and then a stray picket All quiet along the Potomac to-night, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping; There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep- |