She read it after he was dead
Major Sullivan Ballou wrote to his wife Sarah from Camp Clark on July 14, 1861. A week later a cannonball took his leg at Bull Run; he died of it eight days on. He was 32. Sarah was 24, with two small sons.
We read it as his letter. He wrote it as hers.
He opens: “I feel impelled to write a few lines, that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.” He isn't writing to a wife there. He's writing to a widow, on purpose, while pretending to be a husband.
That's why every line has to hold two women at once. “I am ready to fall” also means “I am gone.” His love is deathless because he won't be around to keep it. He can't tell her which sentence to hear, and after him there is no one left who could.
She held both, in his handwriting.
Sarah never remarried. She died in 1917, aged 82, and is buried beside him.
A message written for after the fact isn't softer than one sent in the moment. It just arrives with no one left to answer for it. That's the seat my desk sits in.
If you're carrying a message you can't send, I read it from the recipient's side. $5 a page, $25 a full letter, by card, first three free in the comments.