2020-01 Putnal
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/18/2020
Autograph Letter Signed, "Lamar Fontaine" 1p. quarto, Lyon, Coahoma County, Mississippi, April 3, 1896, on his personal stationary, addressed to Frederick W. White of Worcester, Massachusetts, it reads in part: "...I was wounded sixty seven times in the late war - and that at Waterloo Bridge near Warrenton Springs in August 1862 I did shoot sixty men in sixty minutes...I did not charge six men going into Vicksburg, but did ride through 150 at Hankerson's Ferry on Big Black River coming out...in that charge I did kill four men and was shot 27 times instead of 17 as reported. I was with the Indians only 4 years instead of 13 years. With these slight errors the article as I have seen it is in the main correct…" Fine. One of the most appealing among the hundreds of songs concerning the life of the soldier in the army was "All Quiet Along The Potomac." During the long periods between major battles and campaigns, a soldier's main assignment was the lonely one of picket and sentry duty. The song was based on an actual incident claimed as having taken place during the time of inactivity following the first Battle of Bull Run [21 Jul 1861], while the forces of both sides were gathering strength. For many days the newspapers could merely report in their headlines "All Quiet Along the Potomac," for there were no major battles to describe, and the people were in a tense period of expectation of great events in the future. According to the story, a Confederate soldier, said to be Lamar Fontaine of the Second Virginia Cavalry, was standing night guard on a lonely outpost with one of his best friends, John Moore. After completing his six-hour assignment, he awakened his sleeping friend to take over. Moore stirred the glowing coals of the fire. The flames which leaped up revealed the position to the enemy pickets stationed on the opposite bank of the Potomac River, and made him a perfect target, framed in the fire's light. The bullet of a Union sharpshooter found its mark in Moore. As he determined that his friend had been killed, Fontaine's eyes fell upon the headlines of a newspaper lying on the ground: "All Quiet Along the Potomac." The next day he wrote the poem… So popular was the work, set to music by both Northern and Southern composers, that the commanders of the opposing forces, the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, issued a joint order prohibiting the barbarous custom of picket fire, again exhibiting the powerful influence which a song can exert in times of war.
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