Lamar Fontaine

Lamar Fontaine (October 10, 1829 - October 1, 1921) was an American military officer, spy, surveyor, poet and author. He served in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War, and he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He drew maps of Palestine, Japan and China. He authored poetry and a memoir.

Early life Fontaine was born on October 10, 1829, in Washington County, Texas, near Gay Hill. He had a half brother, Reverend P. H. Fontaine, who became a Methodist minister. He attended school in North Carolina.

Fontaine joined the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861–1865. His autobiography states that he was responsible for sinking the famed cannon "Whistling Dick" in the Mississippi River to prevent it falling into Union hands.

During the Reconstruction era, he joined the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Hinds County and Madison County. An essay he wrote about the Klan was also published in The Ku Klux Klan or Invisible Empire by Mrs S. E. F. Rose. He composed poems, like Oenore, Only a Soldier or Dying Prisoner in Camp Chase, and claimed to have written "All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight". claims of Fontaine's authorship of "All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight" were falsified as part of the revisionist history of the Lost Cause. Instead, the real author of this piece was Unionist Ethel Lynn Beers. Fontaine did, however, publish his own memoir, My Life and My Lectures,

Works