Some of the pictures in this video will look very familiar. The Sullivan Ballou letter of Ken Burns fame is probably one of the most poignant of all the war letters home. Major Ballou was an educated man and he was able to speak of his longings for home in a way that perhaps wasn’t typical of the ordinary grunt. His poetic descriptions of his conflicted feelings for his wife, family and country and his premonitions still send a chill both up and down my spine, knowing that this man died just a few miles from my house in the First Battle of Manassas.
How many of those who died are in unmarked graves, mostly somewhere in the South? Most of those killed in the Civil War, both North and South, never made it home at all. Much has been made of how unprepared this country was to deal with its dead at the beginning of the Civil War. They had to learn quickly. More Americans died in the Civil War than in all of our other wars combined.
Many Americans have their final resting place on foreign soil. There are 11 American military cemeteries in France alone. There are also cemeteries in Belgium, Italy, the Philippines, England, Luxembourg, Tunisia, Mexico, and Panama, to name a few. Those cemeteries with their stark white markers stand as a quiet but indelible reminder: Don’t mess with America. We will do what is necessary to protect our freedom and our people, wherever in the world that threat to our well-being comes from. For every one of us who lies here, there are thousands more just waiting to heed the call….
Of all the things said and done in Ken Burns’ Civil War series, this particular piece is the most moving. Thank you for posting this remembrance of a time so costly to our Nation. Rest on peace Sullivan Ballou, a new generation stands at the ready.
I find the Ballou letter totally haunting. Coupling it with Ashokem Farewell was an act of genius on the part of Ken Burns.
I confess, every single time I hear it tears roll down my face. what a horrible, barbaric war that was!
As I noted in my Memorial Day piece, on average we killed over 600 of our own during the Civil War. My maternal grandfather told me of easily finding equipment and skeletal “parts” only a decade and a half after the war.
While Ashokan Farewell sounds like it comes from the Civil War era, it was written in 1982 by Jay Ungar. It is an extremely beautiful yet haunting melody; one that evokes memories of an era long gone.
PS–I cry, too.
Ashoka Farewell is one of the most haunting melodies I have ever heard. Amazing that someone of this age could capture the past so well.
Where did your materal grandfather live?