AP English Language & Composition. I often hear myself telling the students the course could simply be called "Words Matter." As part of a unit on "The Language of Letters and Speeches," I have created this section on Sullivan Ballou's Letter to Sarah. He wrote this touching letter to his wife, on the eve of his death in the Civil War. Although he himself surely did not take AP Lang, his letter is rich with rhetorical strategy, and begging for analysis. I have created an original AP style