Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 1841-1935

Holmes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and abolitionist Amelia Lee Jackson. Dr. Holmes was a leading figure in Boston intellectual and literary circles. Mrs. Holmes was connected to the leading families; Henry James Sr., Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalists were family friends. Known as "Wendell" in his youth, Holmes, Henry James Jr. and William James became lifelong friends. Holmes accordingly grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement, and early formed the ambition to be a man of letters like Emerson. While still in Harvard College he wrote essays on philosophic themes, and asked Emerson to read his attack on Plato's idealist philosophy. Emerson famously replied, "If you strike at a king, you must kill him." He supported the Abolitionist movement that thrived in Boston society during the 1850s. At Harvard, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian Club; his father had also been a member of both clubs. In the Pudding, he served as Secretary and Poet, as his father did.[6] He enlisted in the Massachusetts militia in the spring of 1861, when the president first called for volunteers following the firing on Fort Sumter, but returned briefly to Harvard College to participate in commencement exercises. In the summer of 1861 with his father's help he obtained a lieutenant's commission in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Holmes's early life was described in detail by Mark DeWolfe Howe, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Shaping Years, 1841–1870 (1957).

During his senior year of college, at the outset of the American Civil War, Holmes enlisted in the fourth battalion, Massachusetts militia, then received a commission as first lieutenant in the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He saw much action, taking part in the Peninsula Campaign, the Battle of Fredricksburg and the Wilderness, suffering wounds at the Battle of Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, and suffered from a near-fatal case of dysentery. He particularly admired and was close to Henry Livermore Abbott, a fellow officer in the 20th Massachusetts. Holmes rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but eschewed promotion in his regiment and served on the staff of the VI Corps during the Wilderness Campaign. Abbott took command of the regiment in his place, and was later killed.

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