Ultimate love letter

Another chilly Valentine's Day has rolled around. Millions of tons of chocolates (and who knows how many trainloads of flowers) will be delivered before sunset.

And, of course, there are the countless romantic cards filled with canned messages from professional writers, most professing love and undying devotion.

It's always nice when strangers typing on computers somehow dash out impossibly wide selections of messages that supposedly are held only in the very personal depths of our individual hearts. Amazing, too, eh? And all that ostensibly sincere professing for only about $5.

Each February at this time my thoughts invariably turn to Maj. Sullivan Ballou from the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry of the Union Army writing to Sarah, his 24-year-old wife of six years, shortly before his first major battle. Together, they had two sons, William and Edgar.

His expressions provide a reminder of how this attorney and legislator turned impassioned soldier can show us how, even 150 years ago, there were those who could write more eloquently and lovingly than anything we'll read on a card today.

With this special day in mind, here, in part, is Ballou's letter, which was set to music and shared with the world during Ken Burns' remarkable Civil War series aired in 1990 on PBS. He penned the message on July 14, 1861.

The letter was not mailed, left to be found later in his personal trunk and delivered. Sarah never remarried, surviving until 1917 when she passed away at age 80.

"My very dear Sarah: The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days--perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more. ...

"Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

"The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me--perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar--that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and 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 and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

"But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you--in the garish day and in the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours--always, always; and if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.

"Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

"As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children--Sullivan."

One week later at the First Battle of Bull Run, Ballou's right leg was hit and torn off by a cannonball that also killed his horse. He survived until July 29 before dying at age 32 from those injuries.

Yet his love letter--those magnificently romantic and deeply tender words he wrote for his wife that night--resonates through history to wind up being absorbed into our own minds and hearts this morning.

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.

Editorial on 02/14/2015

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