Interment Location | Visited | |
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Providence, RI | July 11, 2021 |
In September 1990, documentarian Ken Burns’s television miniseries The Civil War aired on PBS. The series was generally highly-regarded, particularly for its style and effects that would become synonymous with Burns on his rise to becoming America’s best-recognized filmmaker of the documentary genre. To this day, one of the most-talked-about moments occurs in episode 1, “The Cause,” when actor Paul Roebling reads aloud a letter from Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment, addressed to his wife, Sarah. In the missive, 32-year-old Ballou acknowledged the possibility of his death in an imminent battle and felt “impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more[.]” Indeed, the major received a mortal wound at the First Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, one week later. To read the full text of the letter, click here. If you wish to listen to Roebling’s pared down reading of the letter (with a modernized syntax) from the film’s soundtrack, click here.
The First Battle of Bull Run took place on Sunday, July 21, 1861. A significant part of the battle occurred at Matthews Hill, named after the family that owned the farm at the site. There Colonel Ambrose Burnside commanded a New England brigade that included his fellow Rhode Islanders. The fighting at Matthews Hill lasted approximately two hours. During the action, a cannonball struck and killed Ballou’s horse and significantly wounded the major’s leg. He and another injured officer, Colonel John Stanton Slocum, were carried to the Matthews’ home before they were transferred to a hospital at Sudley Church. When the Confederates gained the upper hand, the Union forces retreated to Washington and left their casualties behind. Slocum died that day, while Ballou lingered eight days before he succumbed.
After Major Ballou’s death, he was initially buried in Manassas. In the ensuing weeks, the 21st Georgia Infantry, which fought in the battle, sought retribution against Colonel Slocum and dug up what they believed to be his body but was in reality that of the lower-ranked Ballou. The mistaken Confederate troops desecrated Ballou’s exhumed corpse and cast it into a ravine. When the CSA evacuated Manassas in March 1862, a contingent of Rhode Islanders that included Governor William Sprague IV visited the area to disinter their state’s fallen soldiers and return them home. The party positively identified the decomposed major by his tattered uniform’s insignia. What was left of Major Ballou was collected and buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, where Colonel Slocum was also laid to a permanent rest. Major Ballou is interred beside Sarah Ballou, who died in 1917 at age 82. The major’s personal grave marker wrongly lists his date of death as July 21st, which was the date of the battle but not of his demise. The correct date of July 29th appears on the monument mere feet away.
The obelisk in the Ballou plot is inscribed with the ending line from the doomed major’s missive (punctuation changes notwithstanding): “I wait for you there, come to me and lead thither my children.” Though no reasonable person can dispute the emotional sway of the letter, not all are convinced of its authenticity. Most notable among the doubters is prolific author and Civil War historian Rob Grandchamp. In an interview, Grandchamp recalled that he “analyzed the Ballou letters and compared the known originals in his hand to the famous letter. What it came down to for me was that the Ballou family had carefully preserved all of Sullivan’s letters sent to Sarah during his short time in the army. The original of the famous letter has never been seen by anyone alive today. The prevailing theory is that Sarah was buried with the letter in 1917 when she died; I could find no record of that in her obituary. I pondered and thought, ‘Why would the family not have kept the famous letter with the rest of his papers.’ It is strange to think she was buried with it. […] Numerous manuscript copies abound, but it was not seen in public until 1868. The letter, if it existed in 1861, would have been a great recruiting tool by the State of Rhode Island to motivate young men to enlist. There is another letter documented to Ballou dated July 14, 1861, in the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society, but the tone and style of the letter is so radically different from the famous letter that there is no way, as supported by my research and the analysis of others, that he wrote the famous July 14, 1861, letter.” Grandchamp asserts the famous farewell to Sarah Ballou was written, in reality, after the fact by her late husband’s friend, Horatio Rogers. The pair had a long history. Ballou and Rogers attended college together at Brown, practiced law together, and served in the Rhode Island Legislature together. The author of a biographical sketch on Ballou released the same year as the famous farewell in 1868, Rogers, argues Grandchamp, “had the talent and the motivation to write the letter.”
Fast Facts
Born: March 28, 1829 in Smithfield, Rhode Island
Spouse: Sarah Hart Shumway Ballou (m. 1855-1861)
Military Rank: Major — U.S. Army
Political Affiliation: Republican Party
Died: July 29, 1861 in Manassas, Virginia
Cause of Death: Cannonball Wound
Age: 32
Interment: Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island
"I know I have but few 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, nor that, when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name."
- Sullivan Ballou
in an unmailed letter to his wife, Sarah Ballou, dated July 14, 1861 at Camp Clark in Washington, D.C.
Present-day Fort Lincoln Park was Camp Clark during the Civil War. The 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers to which Major Sullivan Ballou belonged arrived at the northeast Washington location on June 22, 1861. The major’s letter to his wife, Sarah Ballou, was addressed from Camp Clark. At the end of our visit, my friend Kennedy and I listened to the reading of the letter from the Ken Burns documentary, which is linked to both above and here.
Sources Consulted and Further Reading
Burns, Ken, dir. The Civil War. Episode 1. “The Cause.” Aired September 23, 1990, on PBS.
John Banks. “‘No, Sarah!’ Did someone else write Sullivan Ballou letter?” John Banks’ Civil War Blog [blog]. September 2, 2017. https://john-banks.blogspot.com/2017/09/no-sarah-did-someone-else-write.html?m=1.
Jones, Evan C. “Sullivan Ballou: The Macabre Fate Of A American Civil War Major.” Historynet. June 12, 2006. https://www.historynet.com/sullivan-ballou-the-macabre-fate-of-a-american-civil-war-major/?f.
Manassas Battlefield Trust. “Sullivan Ballou: The Truth Behind the Civil War’s Most Famous Letter.” YouTube video, 55:55. March 3, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzN1SmuT4qw.
National Park Service. “‘My Very Dear Wife’ – The Last Letter of Major Sullivan Ballou.” Updated February 3, 2015. https://www.nps.gov/articles/-my-very-dear-wife-the-last-letter-of-major-sullivan-ballou.htm.
National Park Service. “The Battle of First Manassas (First Bull Run). Updated September 4. 2023. https://www.nps.gov/mana/learn/historyculture/first-manassas.htm.
Rhode Island Historical Society. “Sullivan Ballou Papers.” Accessed June 23, 2024. https://www.rihs.org/mssinv/Mss277.htm.