Love, Then and Now.

I've been researching a lot of Civil War stuff, letters, etc. for my book I told you all I was working on.  I just had to share parts of a tender and beautiful letter from a husband to his wife.  Read on, and take it in because people don't write--or talk, for that matter--like this anymore.  This ain't no fiction, gals.

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm Summer Sabbath night, when 2000 men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying perhaps the last sleep before that of death, while I am suspicious that death is creeping around me with his fatal dart, as I sit communing with God, my Country and thee.  I have sought most closely and diligently and often in my heart for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I love, and I could find none.  A pure love of my Country and of the principles I had so often advocated before the people--another name of Honor that I love more than I fear death, has called upon me and I have obeyed. . . .

Sarah my love fore you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break . . . When my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name . . . .  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 gladest days and in the darkest nights, advised to your happiest scences and gloomiest hours, always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.  Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.  - Major Sullivan Ballou

Take a collective sigh, maybe a woo or two.  It's okay.  I know.  And I love it all the more because it's true.  Real.  And sadly, he was killed a week later.

I'm teaching my husband to talk to me like that.  We're not making much progress.  Flowery speech was never his strong suit, but I know he loves me just the same, throbbing temples, soft breezes on my cheek, notwithstanding.