Letter to Sarah Ballou

Sullivan Ballou's letter, dated July 14, 1861, is a farewell written from Camp Clarke in Washington, D.C., to his wife Sarah on the eve of what he sensed would be a deadly march south. In it, Major Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers wrestles with the conflict between his love for Sarah and their two young sons and his conviction that he must fight — and possibly die — to preserve the Union. He affirms his willingness to sacrifice everything for the cause, yet confesses that laying down his family's happiness is the hardest part. The letter closes with a soaring promise that if he is killed, his spirit will remain near her: "if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath." Ballou was mortally wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run one week later and never saw Sarah again.

The letter turns on a central tension between love and duty. Ballou describes his love for Sarah as "deathless," bound by "mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break," yet admits that his love of country "comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield." Other major themes include sacrifice and mortality — he openly contemplates his own death and the orphanhood his sons will face — and faith in an afterlife, as he promises to watch over his family from "the spirit land." The letter also meditates on generational debt: Ballou feels he owes the soldiers of the Revolution and is willing to pay that debt with his life.

Ballou wrote the letter on July 14, 1861, from a military camp in Washington, D.C. He was a 32-year-old attorney from Providence, Rhode Island, a former Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, and a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry. One week later, on July 21, 1861, he was mortally wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) in Virginia — one of 94 men of his regiment killed or mortally wounded that day. His body was reportedly desecrated by Confederate troops and never recovered. The letter was never mailed; it was found among his personal effects and delivered to Sarah by Rhode Island Governor William Sprague.

Despite being a personal letter, the writing displays remarkable literary sophistication. Ballou uses elevated diction throughout — words like "lest," "impelled," "Omnipotence," and "thither" — giving the letter an almost biblical register. His most famous passage employs extended metaphor: love is "mighty cables" while patriotic duty is a "strong wind" that bears him to battle despite those chains. The closing paragraphs shift to sensory imagery — a soft breeze as his breath, cool air as his passing spirit — to make the abstract promise of afterlife presence feel physical and intimate. Ballou also uses antithesis throughout, balancing opposing forces: love against duty, joy against sorrow, life against death. Some scholars have noted echoes of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the passage about honor and death.

Although the letter circulated in Civil War scholarship for over a century, it reached a massive audience through Ken Burns' 1990 PBS documentary The Civil War. In the film's first episode, an abridged version of the letter is read by actor Paul Roebling over Jay Ungar's haunting fiddle composition "Ashokan Farewell." The pairing became one of the documentary's most iconic moments, and the letter has since been regarded as one of the greatest love letters in American history. It is now frequently read at Memorial Day ceremonies and studied in American literature and history classrooms.

The letter's authenticity has been debated by historians. No original manuscript in Ballou's own handwriting has ever been found — the earliest known version is a copy. Some researchers have pointed to the letter's unusually polished literary style and possible echoes of Shakespeare as evidence that it may have been composed or embellished by someone else after Ballou's death. Others note that Ballou was a well-educated lawyer and skilled orator whose training could account for the elevated prose. The American Battlefield Trust and the National Park Service both present the letter as Ballou's, while acknowledging the scholarly debate. Whether composed entirely by Ballou or refined by a later hand, the letter's emotional power and historical resonance remain undisputed.

Sarah Shumway Ballou was just 24 years old when Sullivan died. She was left to raise their two sons — Edgar (the "blue-eyed Edgar" of the letter) and William ("Little Willie," who was too young to remember his father) — on her own. True to Sullivan's confidence in her "maternal care," Sarah never remarried. She lived until 1917, surviving her husband by 56 years. The letter itself was not delivered to her until after Sullivan's death, brought by Governor Sprague along with Sullivan's other personal effects. Sarah kept the letter for the rest of her life.

The letter has become a touchstone of Memorial Day observances because it embodies the sacrifice that the holiday commemorates. Ballou wrote knowing he might die, explicitly weighing whether his death was worth the cause — and concluding that it was, even as he grieved the cost to his family. His willingness to "lay down all my joys in this life" to preserve the Union captures the essence of military sacrifice in deeply personal terms. The letter is frequently read aloud at Memorial Day ceremonies, veterans' events, and school programs, and organizations like What So Proudly We Hail use it as a primary teaching text for understanding the meaning of the holiday.

This is the letter's most quoted line, and it carries a deliberate double meaning. On the surface, Ballou tells Sarah that his love transcends death — it cannot be killed even if he is. But the word "deathless" also sets up the letter's central paradox: a love so powerful it binds him "with mighty cables" to his family, yet not powerful enough to override his sense of duty. The metaphor intensifies in the next sentence, where his love of country arrives as a "strong wind" that carries him to battle despite those unbreakable chains. The genius of the passage is that Ballou does not choose one love over the other — he acknowledges both as absolute, and accepts that the collision between them will likely cost him his life.

Ballou wrote on July 14, 1861, three months after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter launched the Civil War. The Union Army was camped around Washington, D.C., preparing for its first major offensive into Virginia. Soldiers and civilians alike expected a quick, decisive battle — some Washington socialites even planned to picnic near the battlefield. Instead, the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21 was a shocking Confederate victory that shattered Northern illusions about a short war. Ballou's letter, written just days before that reckoning, captures a moment when the reality of mass death was still abstract for most Americans. His clear-eyed acceptance that he might die — "Not my will, but thine O God, be done" — makes the letter an extraordinary primary source documenting the psychological experience of soldiers facing the war's first major engagement.