In it, Catton talks about "quiet names of doom", which previously had no special significance, but now "they will live as long as America remembers.". These are names—Sharpsburg and Spotsylvania begin the list—from postmarks on envelopes containing letters soldiers sent to their families, although sometimes the names arrived on official death notices before the letters did. Geographical names like "Missionary Ridge" were not postmarks. Others, like Bloody Lane, were coined by the soldiers themselves. There are names of churches—Shiloh, New Hope—, names of houses people lived in, and finally "the haunted road that led past Sailor's Creek to Appomattox".