My favorite letter

The man pictured below, Major Sullivan Ballou of Rhode Island, wrote the letter below. It is one of my most favorite things to read. His words of passion and devotion are so moving and powerful to me. He found a cause worth dying for, yet wanted his wife to know that she still meant everything to him. A week after he wrote this, he was killed in the First Battle of Bull Run. Last week on the trip out east, I visited the place where he was killed. It was a very, very special moment for me. So I had to share his letter, yet again... Enjoy.

July 14, 1861

Camp Clark, Washington

My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more...
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 on the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings 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...
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And it is hard 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 sons grown up to honorable manhood around us...
I have, I know, but few and small 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, and 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 and foolish I have often times been! How gladly I would wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness...
But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be near you, in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights... 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...

Sullivan Ballou

Pictures from visit to Civil War battlefields

Above, the five of us gathered in front of the Tennessee memorial to soldiers from the Volunteer state... These and almost all of the Confederate state memorials were along Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg, where the South held their positions through much of the three day battle. It was near here where the rebels began their ill-fated charge, called Pickett's Charge, across the landscape on the third day, losing half of their men in the charge and sealing victory for the Union.

Here are the four of us gathered around the monument to the 20th Maine, who were led by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain - a professor at Bowdoin College in Maine. Chamberlain and his men were almost out of ammunition and saved the day for the Union by employing a seldom used bayonet charge to subdue a much larger Confederate force. Chamberlain was played by Jeff Daniels in the movie about this battle titled, strangely enough "Gettysburg", based on the book "Killer Angels."

Below are Mark and my dad, by a cannon that was used in the battle of Gettysburg, near a monument that was erected to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the battle, when some 1,200 surviving veterans of the war, all in their 90's, came for the dedication of the monument. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke - the year was 1938.

Ok, so it wasn't all somber... this is the four brothers enjoying some conviviality at TGI Friday's, conveniently located across the parking lot from our hotel in Gettysburg... This was Monday night - the day that we arrived in G'sburg...

From left, conveniently, though not intentionally in birth order, Steve, Mark, John and Tom

Civil War Trip

Civil War Battlefield Road Trip – October 18-24, 2009 – A brief outline of our trip.
1) Left home at around 3:00 PM Sunday afternoon, and stayed in Elkhart, IN
2) Monday, Oct. 19 reached Gettysburg, PA around 5:00 PM. Grandpa, Steve and I went to visit the Pennsylvania Monument as night fell, and it helped us get our bearings for the next day’s trip around the battlefield. We ended the day with several hours of beer and jocularity at TGI Friday’s next to our hotel in Gettysburg.

3) Toured Gettysburg National Military Park, with an auto tour CD which gave us audio from a battlefield tour guide who narrated a two hour tour, which we turned into nearly five hours worth. An awesome day of seeing some of the most famous sites in the Civil War. Saw many of the states’ monuments, both ends and the middle of the Pickett’s charge, Little and Big Round Top, Devil’s Den, Seminary and Cemetery Ridges. Stayed in Gettysburg again.
4) Wednesday, Oct. 21 – visited the National Soldier’s Cemetery in Gettysburg, as we ended our time here. Visited Cemetery Ridge once more to see where the battle ended. From Gettysburg, we went on to Antietam National Military Park near Sharpsburg, MD. Saw the Sunken Road (or Bloody Lane), Burnside’s Bridge and the Dunker Church. This was where more than 20,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in one day’s battle in September, 1862. Stayed in Rockville, MD that night.
5) Thursday, Oct. 22 – visited Arlington National Cemetery in the morning – saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldiers, Robert E. Lee’s former home of Arlington House, the graves of the three Kennedy brothers; we marveled at the orderliness, beauty and serenity where more than 300,000 servicemen from every war and conflict that this country has been involved with since the Civil War. That afternoon we traveled from Arlington to Manassas, VA – site of the first and second battles of Manassas, or Bull Run. It is of personal interest to me, as the site where Major Sullivan Ballou of the First Rhode Island, was killed. His letter to his wife Sarah, is to me one of the most beautiful and heartrending pieces of prose that I have ever read. Stayed in Stafford, VA, near Fredericksburg.
6) Friday, Oct. 23 – visited Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia. Saw the Sunken Road and Marye’s Heights, sites of awful carnage, where thousands of Union Soldiers gave their lives in fruitless pursuit of Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s ambiguous battle plans. From there we visited the Wilderness National Battlefield and saw where many soldiers must have thought they were in hell, as the thick, overgrown forest started on fire due to the gunfire, and many wounded soldiers burned to death because they could not escape the flames.
7) We left Virginia around 3:00 PM and are now staying in Monroeville, PA, anticipating a return to Wisconsin sometime tomorrow in the late afternoon.

Pictures at top are of Pennsylvania Monument at Gettysburg, where the names of all 34,000 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought in the battle are listed... and Burnside's Bridge at Antietam National Battlefield Military Park, near Sharpsburg, MD where hundreds of Union soldiers died or were wounded trying to cross over Antietam Creek.

Effort

And so we press on, doing what we can with what we have... And sometimes, our very best isn't good enough... we look, we assess, we prod, we investigate, we do our due diligence, we offer, we open up, we say what overflows from the heart... sometimes it's not enough, sometimes it's TMI, sometimes we want it back. The best is unfiltered, unmeasured, uncalibrated... sometimes we feel stupid about the effort put forth, maybe the timing was wrong, maybe we totally missed with our assumptions, maybe our attempts at comfort, or support or encouragement or humor, were way off the mark... Awkward silence, dumbfounded looks...
We can only do what we can do, and we only come equipped with so many gifts. We can study, and listen, and absorb and hone and try to get better. It seems as if our gifts only get sharper, and we can't quite get all those rough edges smooth. There is nothing grand in defeat, especially at the moment of its arrival. Mumbled words, shrugged shoulders, mouthing of platitudes... it didn't end like this at all, when I pictured this in my mind. The mental rehearsal went flawlessly, every word was well received, everything fell into place, the tears were dried, the crisis averted... but now, well, this is just too bad.
And just because success was not ours, does not mean failure. Because the end result was not for what we had hoped, does not mean total, final failure. Even the sting of the moment sews some hope for the future. We do not feel that there may be hope, but that does not mean there is none present, or germinating... who knows what oaks of triumph lie waiting in the acorns scattered at our feet. Tears stinging at our cheeks, the pummeling of the speed bag within our chest does not tap out messages of joy and celebration - but does that vital muscle within us, that barometer of our soul, take from the smoldering ashes around us, and fertilze the ground secure in the knowledge that a spring of rain and summer's warmth is all that it will take to push forth a harvest of plenty, someday down the road.
The sting is real... the quiet is deafening. Doing our best is what we should do, what we must do, what need to do, have to do, cannot allow ourselves to do anything but... and too often short term results are the only measure that we take. Instant gratification is the crack cocaine of our culture. If it were all easy, we'd never get better at anything. Would celebration be all that precious if that is all we ever did. From the ashes of defeat, pain and loss, we have to know that the only loss that is ever final, is when there is the loss of hope.

pain defines us...

I am hurting physically today, but I like it... It has been a busy, busy week or two, some home improvements going on, my son involved in his high school's homecoming, my daughter home from school this weekend. I took some time yesterday to move a bunch of wood that needs to be split up so that I can burn it over the winter... it was a good amount of wood, but it was a great fall day, overcast, on the cusp of wet weather moving in... I got the wood moved to where it needs to be, with the help of my beloved John Deere... I so enjoy the feeling of tired achy muscles reminding me of a job well done. Now, I am off to be further productive, whilst my two tired seedlings begin to wrestle with the light of the day... albeit five hours after that light has arrived.

This pain I can live with... and don't mind pondering or reliving... it's all good.

Listen, but ignore...

Sometimes we have that conversation in our head that can go on for days... you try to tune it out, push it out, turn it off... but it goes on anyway. It's a scene from our past, a woulda shoulda coulda moment, it's a conversation we want to have or one that we might have had. It's kind of harmless, it can help to organize your thoughts, help you to see things from a different perspective... but that doesn't make it reality.

The gnawing doubts or the insecurities, the petty jealousies, the imagined, or real slights, the way that you are treated or feel that you have been treated, they are there, safe in your mind. Turn them over, figure them out, learn from them in ways to make yourself better. Don't respond to them as if they really happened. Don't believe everything you think.

Things are safe in your mind, you need to take your own counsel sometimes - that does not mean that everything that goes on there is the undisputed truth. You need to feel and believe and to be your best friend... someone has to stick up for you. You have to be passionate on your own behalf - but that does not mean that everyone will care about every single morsel of thought and discussion that went on inside you. It's important to you, but need not go beyond you, yourself and well, you.

Loneliness, fatigue, insecurity, an overactive imagination... all can take places at the table when these discussion groups meet inside your head. Let them have free rein. Just don't publish the minutes, and for God's sake don't feel compelled to have to act on their recommendations.

Living a Dream

Life should be all kinds of "I get to" things instead of "I have to" stuff. Some of that comes with attitude, some of it comes with our situations and how we choose to deal with those realities. Too often I allow myself to wander down the path that leads me to question what is missing from my life - when in reality, my life has an embarassment of riches, and I should spend idle time pondering my blessings, instead of bemoaning why it isn't perfect.

In about three weeks, I "get to" add another slice to the lovely dessert that is my life. I have talked about doing it for a long time, finally, fruition time has arrived. On Sunday, October 18, I will embark on a wonderful journey. My dad will be 81 in November, and is still in excellent health and of sound mind and all that good stuff. Instead of waiting for too long and then wishing that we had acted sooner, my three brothers and I will be leaving on a Civil War tour. We are going to take a week and just visit Civil War battlefields in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

The trip is all mapped out. My oldest brother, who will be celebrating his 60th birthday on the day that we depart, is a pastor, and when he completes his pastoral functions that day, we will get in his van and head for Gettysburg, PA - site of one of the most famous battlefields in all of a American history. More than 50,000 Americans were killed or wounded during the battle that took place over the first three days of July, 1863. I have been there, back in 1995, but only for a cursory tour of the place in a driving rainstorm. I vowed then to come back with my dad. I have no words for how excited I am to be taking this trip.

From Gettysburg, we travel south to Antietam, or Sharpsburg, Maryland - site of the single bloodiest day in American history. Union and Confederate forces fought at very close quarters and neither side flinched. Union Commander General George McClellan had been tipped off to General Robert E. Lee's Confederate plans when a Confederate officer had accidentally left his copy of the battle plans lying around. A short time later a Union soldier had found the prize - the plans were wrapped around three cigars. The discovery of the plans should have allowed a smashing Union victory, but the cautious McClellan moved too slowly and was only able to fight to a draw, with both armies limping away from the September, 1862 debacle, and no end to the carnage for another two and a half years.

Those two are locked in as destinations. From there we will most likely detour a bit to our nation's capital, or just across the river from it, to visit Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA. Two of my brothers have served in the armed forces, and it is a site that I just think we need to include. The elevation and lofty perch of the cemetery, which was Robert E. Lee's home until the Civil War started, is just such an awesome and lovely place, home to final resting place of two Presidents of the US, Supreme Court Justices, soldiers, astronauts, explorers - an almost "Who's Who" of American History...

After Arlington, we hope to visit other Civil War battlefields in Virginia - possibly Manassas (site of the First and Second Battles of Bull Run), Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and Spottsylvania. I am in charge of investigating the sites, finding out hours, admission fees and all that fun stuff. I think we will have a meeting with all five of us to go over the itinerary and make sure that we are all on the same page... but the main thing is that we are going. It will be odd, very strange indeed, for the five of us to travel together and NOT have our golf clubs with us, but we all have a fascination and sincere interest in the Civil War and our nation's history... and to be able to do this together, makes me so happy, I am almost at a loss to describe how I feel.

I get to do some Civil War history research, on site, with my family. I don't know that it could get any better than that.