Talk:Sullivan Ballou

General
I cannot read Sullivan's letter to Sarah and maintain dry eyes or an even voice. The thoughts of this man and the poignancy of his situation speak across the ages, from his day into ours. knoodelhed 08:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out the fact that there is a reference in world of warcraft, the popular online game to Sullivan Ballou, which is where I first came to hear about this letter. It is a quest that is quite well hidden away, under the Thandol Span bridge, between Arathi Highlands and the Wetlands. If you jump into the water and dive down eventually you will come across Sully Balloo's corpse, and the letter will be lying near his hand. This letter starts a quest that asks you to take it to Sarah Balloo in Ironforge. The letter is readable, and does have some minor changes to it as refers to world of warcraft. For instance, heaven is replaced with twisting nether.

After handing in the quest, Sarah breaks down and weeps uncontrollably. She then gives you a follow up quest, in the form of a letter to take to King Magni Bronzebeard, the dwarf leader. This letter I suspect is also based on some letter in history, although this has yet to be proved. The king then gives you another follow up quest to speak to a master stonesmith, and this eventually leads to a memorial being crafted by the stonesmith in honor of Sully Balloo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruffneck2212 (talk • contribs) 07:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Who's Letter?
Though I hate to bring it up, it needs to be included if this article is to be complete. I'm wondering why there is no mention of the controversy over the authorship of the letter. It has been expressed by a fair number of historians that the letter was actually never written by Ballou at all, and that Governor Sprague was the true author; possibly as an attempt to console Mrs. Ballou (or possibly in collusion with her) and/or at the same time use it as a way to encourage his State to commit fully to the then new war (First Manassas was the start). This accounts for there being several versions of the letter, none of them in Ballou's hand. Actually, this article seems to intentionally skirt this aspect. Don't get me wrong, I want the letter to be written by him just as much as the next person, but the question of authenticity should be addressed if we are going to cover the letter. Is it simply a question of citation, or is there another reason it isn't mentioned here?

Also, the desecration of Ballou's body is a question of controversy as well (who actually did it), being that testimonials may have been coerced and the evidence considered circumstantial. Not to mention, if it was in fact Confederate soldiers, which regiment they were from. Add to this the propaganda value of this horrifying act, which was certainly exploited by Sprague, and it produces some questions that might need to be included as well. --Trippz (talk) 16:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

So... It's been more than four years since Trippz pointed this out and it still hasn't been addressed. I've done some research of my own and there seems to be significant evidence in favor of the idea that Ballou didn't write the letter. I mean, the romantic in all of us wants to believe it was authored by Ballou. I certainly do. But from an objective standpoint, dafuq? It seems that the question of authenticity has been intentionally excluded from this article.

On an unrelated note, I was checking out the history page for the article and found that a couple weeks ago someone had changed "He [Ballou] lost both of his parents at a young age and was forced to fend for himself" to "He lost both of his homosexual parents at a young age and was forced to rape his sister and fend for himself."

That's clearly juvenile BS and a Bot quickly deleted the changes. But you know what, it was funny. I HATE CLEVERBOT. (Hence my refusal to edit articles or even have a username.) 68.100.138.56 (talk) 00:42, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * You folks care to cite your sources? That would lend more authority to your arguments that Ballou didn't write the letter.
 * Also, it's "whose", the possessive, not "who's", the contraction of "who is".

TheBaron0530 (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Later Developments
Does anyone have information on whatever became of Sarah, and her two children, Edgar and Willie, during and after the war?

John Paul Parks (talk) 17:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sarah never remarried and I believe she is buried next to him. This was mentioned in the special features of Ken Burn's documentary. Don't know about the children. --Trippz (talk) 06:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Question
How can his wife, Sarah, be buried next to him if his body was never found? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Charred ash and bone were collected and believed to be his remains. That is what was buried, as described in the article.  -- Trippz  06:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)