Civil War Letters: "Letter to Sarah"

Below is a letter I transcribed from " 'Ken Burns Civil War - Episode 1' at YouTube"  documentary.

Not "shared" or promoted in any way. It is here just as something special and extra for those of you who stop by each week to see if  "Laura-Lee Was Here".

You are so dear to me my faithful and beloved bloggers.
Sincerely, Laura-Lee

(You can find all the Civil War episodes now playing at the YouTube Website)



Letter to Sarah Ballou, wife in Smithfield.

(letter begins at time code  1:31:35  ) 

(copied down verbatim by Laura-Lee Rahn)



(Sullivan Ballou,  Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers,  wrote home to his wife, Sarah, in Smithfield)



"July 14, 1861, Washington, DC

Dear Sarah,

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days. Perhaps tomorrow. Unlest I should not be able to write you again,  I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.

I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain  this government and  to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break. And yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. 

The memory of all the blissful moments I've enjoyed with you come crowding over me and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you that I've enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and the future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.

Ballou Family

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you. Nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. 

Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you.  How thoughtless. How foolish I have sometimes been. 

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and the darkest night. Always. Always. 

And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath. Or the cool air, your throbbing temple. It shall be my spirit passing by. 
Sarah, do not mourn me dead. Think I am gone and wait for me. For we shall meet again ."

Sullivan & Sarah

(Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the first battle of Bull Run)

Gettysburg Address Civil War Speech

A Framed Parchment of the
Gettysburg Address (like this one)
hung in our home for many years. 

From large home to skid shack, wherever we lived it was prominently displayed in the kitchen by our table for all to see. 
Even  before I could read, I would ask Mom to read it out loud for me and she would stop whatever she was doing  and do just that. (even when she knew I made the request just to stall from doing something I didn't want to do). 
Next to Abraham Lincoln himself, I don't think anyone could have recited it better or with more depth of feeling than she did. I didn't understand all of it, but the way Mom read it made me long to know it's true and deeper meaning.
(I wonder how many ways that affected me?) 

Abe Lincoln at Gettysburg

                                     Gettysburg Address

by Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863



LINK to INFO "Gettysburg Address" at History.com Website