The Civil War, having brought so much suffering, also produced memorable prose — and perhaps the most haunting love letter written in the English language. Major Sullivan Ballou, a Rhode Island legislator, wrote to his wife Sara near the war’s beginning, telling her he was off to battle and not to mourn him if he was killed, “{F}or we will meet again.” He died a week later in the first Battle of Bull Run, July of 1861. The letter was never mailed. Read it on the PBS (Ken Burns) Civil War film page; better, listen to it from the film soundtrack — and weep.
TOM TIEDE