Before the Battle of Bull Run; A soldier's letter to his wife

I never watched Ken Burn's documentary The Civil War.

But here is an interesting and poignant article from the Washington Post about a Union soldier, Sullivan Ballou, and the letter he wrote for his wife before the Battle of Bull Run. The battle was fought 150 years go yesterday.

Civil War soldier’s heartbreaking farewell letter was written before death at Bull Run

In 1986, filmmaker Ken Burns received a copy of a long-forgotten Civil War soldier’s letter that a scholar thought he might find interesting.

Burns, then working on his award-winning PBS documentary about the war, began to read it out loud to his wife, brother and another staff member in his Walpole, N.H., headquarters.

“My dear Sarah,” the letter began, “the indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days. . . . Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines which will fall under your eye when I shall be no more.”

And here is the full text - Sullivan Ballou letter

Comments

[maria]

When I first heard this years ago, the women I was with all simultaneously burst into tears.