This weekend is more than just a long weekend, more than the unofficial beginning of summer. Monday is Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember those who have borne the battle “that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Memorial Day is often represented by row upon row of white crosses with small flags planted at their bases and fluttering in the springtime breeze. But each of those crosses also represents the life of a child, a father or mother, a brother or sister, a husband or wife, a best friend, whose life was cut short.

In 1861, Sullivan Ballou, a young Union soldier from Rhode Island, wrote what would be his last letter home to his beloved wife Sarah. His letter is a reminder of the cost of war:

July 14th, 1861
Washington D.C.

My 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 you again, I feel impelled to write 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 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my 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 the 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 cares 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…

Click here for the entire letter.