Well, other than each believing that they were doing the right and noble thing, there was not much similarity at all. Major Sullivan Ballou was a volunteer Union army officer from Rhode Island who correctly projected he may die in his next upcoming battle. He tells his wife in his last letter that if he does die, he does so in support of the Federal government and in the spirit that the founding fathers formed the country during the revolution. Lee, on the other hand is a West Point graduate and a General from the south. He says in his letters that he resigns from the Union army so that he can defend his State of Virginia, as he believes states rights are more important than the Federal laws and goals. Over time, Lee becomes an evolving emancipationist however and gradually learns to hate the institution of slavery. He is also the first public white man to kneel next to a black man on an altar in church after the war ended, to show that things had changed and everyone else should change now too. Each were decent and honorable men, but with different world views.
