Volume 44 - No. 26
June 26, 2014
foreword by lyle e davis
In today's fast paced society we don’t take the time to write letters like we used to. And when we do, we often make a pretty poor job of it. It has become a lost art.
We men are probably the worst when it comes to writing letters. Particularly love letters. I suppose, in part, it’s due to our inability to express our deepest emotions and feelings. What follows is a story that leads up to the most beautiful Love Letter I've ever read or heard.
Born March 28, 1829, in Smithfield, R.I., Sullivan Ballou was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.; Brown University in Providence, R.I. and the National Law School in Ballston, N.Y. He was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar in 1853. Ballou devoted his brief life to public service. He was elected in 1854 as clerk of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, later serving as its speaker. He married Sarah Hart Shumway on October 15, 1855, and the following year saw the birth of their first child, Edgar. A second son, William, was born in 1859. Ballou immediately entered the military in 1861 after the war broke out. He became judge advocate of the Rhode Island militia. Responding to his nation’s call, the former Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives enlisted in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, where he was elected major.
By mid-July, the swirling events in the summer of 1861 had brought Ballou and his unit to a camp of instruction in the nation’s capital. With the movement of the federal forces into Virginia imminent, Sullivan Ballou penned this letter to his wife. His concern that he “shoud fall on the battlefield” proved all too true. One week after composing his missive, as the war’s first major battle began in earnest on the plans of Manassas, Ballou was struck and killed as the Rhode Islanders advanced The Paper - 760.747.7119
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from Matthews Hill.
Regrettably the story of Sullivan Ballou does not end with a his death on the field of battle and a piercing letter to a young widow. During the weeks and months that followed the battle, Confederate forces occupying the area of the battlefield desecrated the graves of many fallen Federals. As a means of extracting a revenge of sorts against the Union regiment at whose hand they had suffered, a Georgia regiment sought retribution
against the Rhode Islanders.
Supposed they had disinterred the body of Colonel John Slocum, commanding the Rhode Islanders during the battle, the Confederates desecrated the body and dumped it in a ravine in the vicinity of the Sudley Methodist Church. Immediately following the Confederate evacuation from the Manassas area in March 1862, a contingent of Rhode Island officials, including Governor William Sprague, visited the Bull Run battlefield
to exhume thir fallen sons and return them to their native soil. Led to the defiled body, the party examined the reamains and a tattered remnant of uniform insignia and discovered that the Confederates had mistakenly uncovered the body of Major Sillivan Ballou, not his commanding officer. The remains of his body were transported back to Rhode Island, where they were laid to rest in Providence’s Swan Point Cemetery.
Of the tens of thousands of let-
A Letter for Sarah Continued on Page 2