It Will Whisper Your Name

Sacrifice, as understood via the solemn eloquence of a forlorn patriot

I can’t recall exactly when I discovered Ken Burn’s epic nine-part documentary The Civil War. It sparked my interest, leading to more discovery in deeper detail.

As my knowledge grew, I’d go back and watch again, each time connecting more. It is an addictive masterwork. If you haven’t absorbed it, consider doing so.

Years later, there remains one moment that stands out. Like a fingerprint arising clearly from the occasionally jostled dust of old memories.

Thinking about that moment has become a Memorial Day habit. Perhaps even a sacrament.

War is a tidal wave of pain and loss. It rushes haphazardly over everything, sparing no one and nothing, no matter how benevolent or innocent. War does not operate on the logic of just deserts. It is by nature shocking. Indiscriminate. The wave of war soaks and chills and blackens every molecule it touches. Doom and vacancy follow, but not before Hellishness grips a cold world simultaneously unreal and too real.

As that wave rushes over the land, there are a few insightful observers who innately intuit its meaning so instantly that it gives them time to spare before the wave reaches them. Time to reflect. Time to absorb and make sense of what they know is coming. What they know is inevitable and merciless.

Major Sullivan Ballou, a Union Army soldier and Rhode Island lawyer active in state politics, was one such bright light.

In July 1861, he knew as sure as he’d been born that he was soon to die. He’d understood it for some time. Enough time to ruminate, to struggle for meaning, to wish for salvation, and to curse the vanity of doing so.

He settled himself upon the finality of things, and then begged to be wrong.

Ballou managed to suspend himself in a state of conflict and yet claim enough lucidity to illustrate with calm clarity what he was thinking and feeling. His terrified heart, yearning to burst from his chest, instead powered his pen as it chronicled life in the shadow of war’s approaching wave.

One week before the first major battle of the Civil War, Ballou penned a letter to his wife Sarah, keen that she should know the workings of his mind as the moment of truth drew near.

The result is one of the most beautiful meditations you can ever hope to absorb on any subject.

Let’s see if you agree.

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Headquarters, Camp Clark
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1861

My Very Dear Wife:

Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines, that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine, O God be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for any country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans upon the triumph of government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know, that with my own joys, I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with care and sorrows, when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it, as their only sustenance, to my dear little children, is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country.

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in this hazarding the happiness of those I loved, and I could not find one. A pure love of my country, and of the principles I have often advocated before the people, and "the name of honor, that I love more than I fear death," have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.

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.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care, and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers, I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

- Sullivan

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In modern times, we’ve relied heavily on young people to do our fighting. We reckon they’re stronger. More able-bodied. Better equipped, in the physical and cognitive prime of life, to withstand the pressures and trials of combat.

But it’s also true that younger people have fewer attachments, making them less emotionally vulnerable. More easily able to screen out thoughts and feelings that, to borrow Ballou’s words, tend to crowd around those who’ve fastened themselves to others.

Channelizing focus and padlocking on an objective, to the exclusion of every other thought, is a skill not as readily wielded as popular culture might suggest. But it’s definitely tougher as we get older. We have more relationships. Possessions. Financial obligations. Children. More responsibilities to more people.

It’s a different world psychologically from that of young adulthood, contrasting vividly enough to spawn a million cliches. A world where thinking too much about what you stand to lose can become debilitating. Slowing action, clouding decisions, triggering hesitation.

And yet, there is no antidote.

Caring about people is the ultimate Kryptonite. We tell ourselves to compartmentalize as a survival mechanism. We sometimes succeed in doing so.

But ultimately, for all but the sociopaths among us, containing our most insistent thoughts in a sealed mental compartment during moments of dreaded anticipation is not possible, and gets harder with time. Keeping that compartment closed so its contents don’t flood the mind and heart is as futile as attempts to swim against the ferocious tidal wave of war.

All of which is to say that soldiers marching into battle are not as single-minded as we make them out to be.

They become focused on the tasks and tactics at hand when presented with a threat capable of focusing the mind. Up to that moment, they are beset with crippling conflict.

Succeeding at one duty by failing at another. Understanding more than ever what matters while never being less able to touch it. Resolved to do what they came to such a doomed and bloody place to do, yet crystalline that if they could have just one wish, it would be to go home.

Ballou’s letter to Sarah captures this relentless fusillade of quarreling thoughts and feelings with timeless authenticity.

The anguish and anxiety of beckoning death.

The pulse of determination as a metronome ticking against endemic confusion and misdirection.

The regret of duty. The duty of regret.

The engine of Ballou’s heartbreak is the reality of what patriotism means in times of trouble. We can feel his hair graying and thinning with each word. He is wracked with responsibility. With the grim irony of having answered the call of duty only to betray and lose everything else he ever cared about.

Love of country so strong it overpowers duty to family. Never the intent, but always the result. It triggers endless quakes of guilt, eventually intensifying into an emotionally seismic moment where soul and psyche crumble. Only cold bits of self-loathing can be found in the rubble, pressed into hollowness in a vain attempt to prevent the heart collapsing upon itself like a dying star.

Love kept him marching toward its own demise. He resigned himself to it. He did his best to comfort Sarah, and to quiet his own mind in doing so.

A week later, on a battlefield near Manassas, Sullivan Ballou was struck by enemy fire and killed. His sadly fulfilled prophecy survived, safely folded away in his pocket, and eventually fell under the eyes of his beloved.

Memorial Day has become a day for recitals of lofty ideals. For generalizing about what’s been given in our name.

For me, it’s not about themes or rhetoric or barbecues. It’s about individuals. Ordinary people responding to extraordinary pressures. Muddling through. Choosing between bad and worse options. Agonizing with the reality that no matter what they do, they’ll be letting someone down.

And yet, having the grit and resolve and the salt to do what is necessary. To break themselves on the wheel of war, demoting their agony and anguish to secure peace for people they’ll never know, and who may neither appreciate nor deserve the tranquility which came at such a steep cost.

Sullivan Ballou’s words make me think of those people, and to celebrate and mourn them. To confront the inadequacy of not deserving or as yet fully earning, as an individual or a collective, what they gave.

In my own cherished tranquility, secured by greater men, I sit in quiet reflection and try with every wit to empathize. Because if I can feel even a fleeting twinge of the despair they carried, it keeps their memory alive. It whispers their name.

And that, nothing less, is what they deserve.

Written in honor of those who gave all.

Tony is an American veteran and independent writer.