(The most ever deserving letter to make it to the blog…)
Hanging with gib is always an adventure. I never really know
what to do with him, and I maintain calm by asking what he wants to watch on
tv. (A circlejerk with your uncle is just about as creepy as a circlejerk
period. So watching tv is more sublime than I would need otherwise.) So somehow we ended up on a show called Baggage with Springer and I have
to say I had to point to the remote just to make him move to change the
channel.
To my amazement he found an interview with Ken Burns. Ken spoke
about and they showed footage of his series or one movie (whatever) the Dust Bowl.
Amazing footage, apparently there was bad times in the plains with human
erosion of the land, and the middle of the country literally had become a dust
bowl back in the day. Think a blizzard of 5 feet of snow… but it’s dust and 60 MPH
winds… Not the point so we move on.
He spoke about the civil war documentary a bit and it was
amazing hearing what happened to them in battle.
The interviewer asked him about the Sullivan Ballou letter. He
said somewhere they found it and he told his assistant (?) to make a few copies
of it and he even showed the actual piece of paper he carries with him in his
wallet at the interview. He said when he originally read it, he read it aloud and at the
end of it everyone in the room, including himself was in tears. I hadn’t heard
it before, so in fact I found it on the internet. Apparently this is on
youtube, so maybe I can find it. I’ll post the link at the end. But this is
a letter written to his wife a week before the battle of bull run and it
happens to be probably the most beautiful thing I have seen made from a man to
a woman. This is the kind of relationship I’d love to have with a woman, but there’s
none out there deservant of me… hahaha!
Ken said he’d find it a nice spot just after the battle of
bull run ran in the film, and there it lies to end the particular part of the
series. Ken said it summed up the entire feel of the awfulness of a civil war.
Without further adoooooooooooo….. I give you warning. Get a
tissue. Otherwise, this is the dream of my heart:
(written as read from the film...)
A week before the battle of Bull Run Sullivan Ballou, a
Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife in Smithfield.
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July 14,1861
Camp Clark, Washington DC
Dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few
days - perhaps tomorrow. And lest 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 have
enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God
and you, that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to
give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years, when, God willing,
we might still have lived and loved together, and see our boys grown up to honorable
manhood around us.
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 battle field, 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, 0 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 in 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...
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Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the 1st Battle of
Bull Run.
III
