Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

“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 to-night,

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;

Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,