Thaddeus Oliver, who wrote “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight,” was born in Twiggs County on Dec. 25, 1826, the son of William Oliver and Dorcas Harrison Oliver. He went to Marion County in 1850 and taught for two years in Buena Vista Academy. After studying law under Judge Mark Blanford, he was admitted to the bar in 1852 and was serving as Solicitor General of the Chattahoochee Circuit when he joined the Confederate Army on April 15, 1861. His first service in Virginia was with the Buena Vista Guards, Co. I, Seventh Ga. Infantry. Later he organized Co. E, 63d Regiment, in Marion County and was elected Captain. He served in the Army of Tennessee [CS] until he died of wounds in a Charleston, S.C. hospital on Aug. 21, 1864. He wrote his famous poem while stationed at Aquia Creek, Va. in August 1861. His wife, the former Sarah Penelope Lawson, is buried with him in what was once the family burying ground on the Hugh Lawson plantation, and their sons, Rev. Hugh Forsyth Oliver and Admiral James Harrison Oliver, were “the two in the low trundle bed” in the famed song.