Oliver Wendell Holmes

by Stephen Budiansky

  10.Holmes Sr. to Felton, July 24, 1861, in Howe, Holmes of Breakfast-Table, 102–4.

  11.Howe, Holmes of Breakfast-Table, 104.

  12.Howe, Shaping Years, 76.

  13.Tilton, Amiable Autocrat, 265.

  14.Howe, Shaping Years, 77; OWH to FF, November 2, 1916, H-F, 58.

  15.Miller, “Trouble with Brahmins,” 39–40.

  16.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 10–11.

  17.Ferdinand Dreher to John Andrew, December 3, 1862, quoted in Miller, “Trouble with Brahmins,” 66.

  18.Capt. George Adam Schmitt to Andrew, May 11, 1862, quoted in ibid., 59.

  19.O’Connor, Boston Irish, 83–89.

  20.HLA to Mrs. Caroline Livermore Abbott, May 7, 1863, FL, 179; HLA to Elizabeth Livermore, December 21, 1861, FL, 93; Palfrey, Bartlett, 2.

  21.HLA to Mrs. Caroline Livermore Abbott, February 8, 1864, FL, 237.

  22.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 20–24, 32.

  23.Ibid., 32–33.

  24.OWH to AJH, September 8, 1861, TWF, 4.

  25.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 47–49.

  26.OWH to AJH, September 11 and 23, 1861, TWF, 6–12.

  27.Palfrey, Bartlett, 11; Bruce, Twentieth Regiment, 20.

  28.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 55, 68–69.

  29.Except as noted, the events of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff described here and below are drawn from the excellent account in Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 55–80, and from Ballard, Ball’s Bluff.

  30.Bruce, Twentieth Regiment, 30.

  31.William F. Bartlett to his mother, October 25, 1861, in Palfrey, Bartlett, 20; HLA to JA, October 22, 1861, FL, 60.

  32.HLA to JA, October 22, 1861, FL, 62; Palfrey, Bartlett, 24.

  33.OWH to AJH, October 23, 1861, TWF, 13.

  34.HLA to JA, October 22, 1861, FL, 62; Palfrey, Bartlett, 25–26.

  35.OWH to EC, February 13, 1921, MDHM, 14-22; TWF, 24.

  36.Holmes’s account here and in the following paragraphs is from his diary, TWF, 23–33.

  37.OWH to AJH, October 23, 1861, TWF, 13, 18.

  38.Dr. William Hunt to Holmes Sr., November 3, 1861, quoted in Howe, Shaping Years, 101.

  39.Belknap, “Justice Holmes,” 7.

  40.Holmes Sr. to Dr. William Hunt, November 12, 1861, in Howe, Holmes of Breakfast-Table, 105.

  41.White, Justice Holmes, 503 n. 16.

  42.Holmes Sr. to John Lothrop Motley, November 29, 1861, in LLH, 2:158.

  43.OWH to FP, January 24, 1918, H-P, 1:258; Howe, Shaping Years, 112–13.

  44.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 97.

  45.Ibid., 97, 103–4.

  46.HLA to Carry Abbott, August 10, 1862, FL, 136; HLA to JA, October 22, 1861, FL, 62; HLA to Mrs. Caroline Livermore Abbott, January 8, 1863, FL, 159.

  47.HLA to JA, September 18, 1863, FL, 215, and August 17, 1863, FL, 201; HLA to Mrs. Caroline Livermore Abbott, September 6, 1863, FL, 212.

  48.HLA to JA, September 18, 1863, FL, 215.

  49.OWH to parents, March [25], 1862, TWF, 37.

  50.McPherson, Battle Cry, 424.

  51.Ibid., 425–27.

  52.OWH to parents, April 7 and 23, 1862, TWF, 38–39, 44; OWH to Holmes Sr., June 13, 1862, TWF, 53; Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 134–35.

  53.OWH to parents, June 2, 1862, TWF, 51; Hallowell, Selected Letters, 12–13.

  54.Entry for January 30, 1934, Howe, Diary, 23.

  55.“Memorial Day,” CW, 3:464.

  56.OWH to Alfred E. Zimmern, January 22, 1918, MDHM, 18-32.

  57.OWH to parents, July 5, 1862, TWF, 60; OWH to NG, December 31, 1920, MDHM, 4-3; Belknap, “Justice Holmes,” 17.

  58.OWH to John C. H. Wu, June 16, 1923, Wu, “Letters,” 261–62.

  59.According to the D-Day Museum, total U.S. Army casualties in the American airborne landings and beach assaults on D-Day were 6,774; Union casualties at Antietam were 12,400.

  60.Ballard, Ball’s Bluff, 56.

  61.For the Twentieth Regiment’s action at Antietam, see Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 167–76.

  62.OWH to FP, June 28, 1930, H-P, 2:270.

  63.Ibid.; “New England Never Runs,” Harper’s Weekly, November 9, 1861, 706.

  64.Hallowell, Selected Letters, 16–18.

  65.Le Duc, “The Captain,” 80.

  66.Belknap, “Justice Holmes,” 6–7; Findlay, “The Captain,” 117–18, 121.

  67.Belknap, “Justice Holmes, 7; OWH to parents, September 22, [1862], TWF, 67; Findlay, “The Captain,” 118.

  68.Holmes Sr., “My Hunt,” 760.

  69.Sergeant, “Holmes,” 60; Belknap, “Justice Holmes,” 7.

  70.Civil War Scrapbook, OWHP. The bloodstained handkerchief is in the OWH Object Collection at Harvard Law School; see also TWF, 32 n. 27.

  CHAPTER 4: The Wilderness

  1.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 93–94.

  2.HLA to JA, November 20, 1862, FL, 143.

  3.Miller, “Brahmins Under Fire,” 103–4; Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 182, 218.

  4.HLA to Elizabeth Livermore, January 10, 1863, FL, 161.

  5.H-E, xvii; OWH to LE, March 8, 1924, H-E, 221–22.

  6.“Memorial Day,” CW, 3:465.

  7.OWH to parents, November 16, 1862, TWF, 69; HLA to OWH, September 5, 1863, FL, 211.

  8.OWH to Amelia Holmes, November 16, 1862, TWF, 70–71; OWH to parents, November 16, 1862, TWF, 69.

  9.OWH to Amelia Holmes, November 19, 1862, TWF, 72.

  10.OWH to LE, October 14, 1917, H-E, 152.

  11.OWH to AJH, December 12, 1862, TWF, 74; OWH to LE, August 27, 1917, H-E, 146.

  12.Miller, Harvard’s Civil War, 198–99, 206.

  13.“Memorial Day,” CW, 3:465.

  14.Miller, “Trouble with Brahmins,” 66–67, 71.

  15.McPherson, Battle Cry, 571–72; Fox, Regimental Losses, 164.

  16.McPherson, Battle Cry, 574; Henry Ropes to John C. Ropes, January 17, 1863, quoted in Howe, Shaping Years, 148.

  17.HLA to JA, January 19 and 22, 1863, FL, 162–64.

  18.OWH to HJL, June 1, 1927, H-L, 2:948.

  19.OWH to Holmes Sr., December 20, 1862, TWF, 79–80.

  20.Entry for January 30, 1934, Howe, Diary, 22; Remarks to 20th Regimental Association, December 11, 1897, CW, 3:519.

  21.Howe, Shaping Years, 146.

  22.OWH to Holmes Sr., March 29, 1863, TWF, 86–91.

  23.OWH to AJH, May 3, [1863], TWF, 92.

  24.Acheson, Memoir, 62.

  25.Entry for January 30, 1934, Howe, Diary, 23; Charles A. Whittier to OWH, May 15, 1863, Civil War Scrapbook, OWHP; OWH to AJH, May 3, 1863, TWF, 92. During the First World War, Holmes wrote to an English friend whose son had lost an arm, “I remember when I wished I could compromise by losing my foot”: OWH to Lady Askwith, March 3, 1915, MDHM, 13-1.

  26.OWH to FP, February 1, 1920, H-P, 2:36.

  27.Holmes Sr. to Dr. William Hunt, May 25, 1863, LLH, 2:25.

  28.Sutherland, “Recollections,” 23; OWH to HJL, July 19, 1916, H-L, 1:6.

  29.Holmes Sr. to Dr. Hunt, May 25, 1863, LLH, 2:25; Norwood P. Hallowell to OWH, February 7, 1863, Civil War Scrapbook, OWHP; HLA to OWH, May 18, 1863, FL, 183.

  30.HLA to JA, August 7, 1863, FL, 197–98.

  31.HLA to JA, July 6, 1863, FL, 188.

  32.Ibid., 186.

  33.Ibid., 184 and n. 2; HLA to OWH, July 28, 1863, FL, 194.

  34.John C. Ropes to OWH, July 7, 1863, Civil War Scrapbook, OWHP.

  35.McPherson, Battle Cry, 686–87.

  36.Edward P. Hallowell to OWH, August 4, 1863, Civil War Scrapbook, OWHP.

  37.HLA to OWH, October 18, 1863, FL, 226; HLA to JA, July 27, 1863, FL, 192. Abbott’s racially offensive comment in his letter to Holmes was omitted from the published version in Scott, Fallen Leaves: see Howe, Shaping Years, 159.

  38.HLA to OWH, September 22, 1863, FL, 219.

  39.Whittier quoted in OWH to parents, March 18, 1863, TWF, 85.

  40.Ibid., August 10, 1863.

  41.OWH to NG, Nove
mber 12, 1927, MDHM, 4-19; Donald Hiss in Louchheim, New Deal, 34.

  42.OWH to CM, April 8, 1912, MDHM, 19-27; OWH to NG, June 5, 1913, MDHM, 3-34.

  43.Diary, May 4, 1864, TWF, 103.

  44.King, Robertson, and Clay, Overland Campaign, 111.

  45.McPherson, Battle Cry, 722; Rhea, Spotsylvania, 3–4.

  46.Rhea, Wilderness, 51–52.

  47.Diary, May 4, 1864, TWF, 104–5.

  48.Diary, May 6 and 7, 1864, TWF, 106–7.

  49.OWH to Lady Askwith, September 18, 1914, MDHM, 13-1; OWH to CSRS, September 11, 1914, MDHM, 17-39.

  50.FL, 252–53; Bruce, Twentieth Regiment, 353–54; OWH to parents, May 6, 1864, TWF, 105.

  51.Bruce, Twentieth Regiment, 357; Menand, Metaphysical Club, 54; “The Soldier’s Faith,” address on Memorial Day to the Harvard University graduating class, 1895, CW, 3:487.

  52.King, Robertson, and Clay, Overland Campaign, 146.

  53.McPherson, Battle Cry, 726–27.

  54.Diary, May 8, 1864, TWF, 108–9.

  55.Diary, May 9, 1864, TWF, 109–10; OWH to AJH, May 11, 1864, TWF, 114. Sedgwick was in fact struck by a shot fired from a Whitworth rifle, a British-manufactured sniper weapon that had a range and accuracy far greater than the standard infantry rifles of the day. It was employed by Confederate sharpshooters throughout the war.

  56.“The Soldier’s Faith,” CW, 3:488.

  57.Diary, May 12 and 13, 1864, TWF, 116–17.

  58.OWH to parents, May 16, 1864, TWF, 121–23.

  59.King, Robertson, and Clay, Overland Campaign, 447 (map 73).

  60.Diary, May 24 and 29, 1864, TWF, 131, 133.

  61.Diary, May 29, 1864, TWF, 133–34; Sutherland, “Recollections,” 22.

  62.OWH to parents, May 30, 1864, TWF, 136; OWH to AJH, June 7, 1864, TWF, 142.

  63.OWH to parents, May 30, 1864, TWF, 135–36.

  64.TWF, 137 n. 4.

  65.“Memorial Day,” CW, 3:463; OWH to Lady Pollock, May 13, 1898, H-P, 1:86; OWH to FP, December 21, 1886, H-P, 1:29; OWH to FF, March 5, 1917, H-F, 68.

  66.King, Robertson, and Clay, Overland Campaign, 310.

  67.OWH to AJH, June 7, 1864, TWF, 142–43.

  68.OWH to parents, June 5, 1864, TWF, 140; Diary, June 4, 1864, TWF, 139; OWH to Agnes Pomeroy, June 21, 1864, MDHM, 13-8.

  69.OWH to parents, June 24, 1864, TWF, 148–50.

  70.The story that Holmes was the soldier who shouted to Lincoln at Fort Stevens, “Get down, you fool!” has had a long life but is apocryphal. It first appeared in print in 1938 in an article in the Atlantic Monthly (“ ‘Get Down, You Fool!,’ ” February 1938, 169–73) by the New Yorker writer Alexander Woollcott, who said that he had heard it from Harold Laski at a luncheon in New York in 1937.

  Laski was well known among his friends for spinning fascinating but totally fabricated anecdotes. The only contemporary account of the incident at Fort Stevens comes from Lincoln’s secretary John Hay, who noted in his diary that Lincoln, on returning from the fort that day, had related how “a soldier” had “roughly ordered him to get down or he would have his head knocked off.” Although Holmes frequently took visitors to Fort Stevens, and liked to point out where he had seen Lincoln, none of his friends except Laski and Felix Frankfurter ever said they heard Holmes claim he had told the president to get down. Nor do any of Holmes’s letters to Laski and others in which he recounts seeing Lincoln at Fort Stevens mention this supposed incident (see for example OWH to HJL, May 27, 1921, H-L, 1:339–40; OWH to LE, March 27, 1912, H-E, 67). Holmes’s secretaries Mark DeWolfe Howe and Arthur Sutherland and his cousin’s husband Austin H. Clark were adamant that Holmes never said any such thing on their several visits to the fort with him (entry for October 30, 1933, Howe, Diary, 4–5; Sutherland, “Recollections,” 22; anecdotes of Austin Clark, May 1948, MDHM, 22-27).

  Like Laski, Frankfurter first recounted the story some years after the justice’s death, and probably had his memory unconsciously influenced by Laski or the Woollcott article. The historiography of this incident has been a minor scholarly subspecialty of Civil War historians: see, for example, Hicks, “Lincoln, Wright, Holmes,” and Cramer, Lincoln Under Fire.

  71.Francis A. Walker to OWH, July 23, 1864, Civil War Scrapbook, OWHP.

  CHAPTER 5: “Society of Jobbists”

  1.“The Soldier’s Faith,” CW, 3:488, 490.

  2.“Memorial Day,” CW, 3:467.

  3.Shriver, What Gusto, 29; Anecdotes, Marion D. Frankfurter, 5, August 10, 1932, MDHM, 22-26.

  4.OWH to Lady Askwith, June 28, 1916, MDHM, 13-1; OWH to HJL, April 8, 1919, H-L, 1:194.

  5.OWH to HJL, November 22, 1917, H-L, 1:112.

  6.“I make it a point to get eight hours in bed a night, from 12 to 8 a.m.”: OWH to Kaneko Kentaro, April 26, 1931, Kanda and Gifford, “Kaneko Correspondence,” 429.

  7.OWH to LE, June 27, 1917, H-E, 142; Holmes, “Path of the Law,” 466.

  8.Menand, Metaphysical Club, 4; Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 11.

  9.TWF, 57 n. 2.

  10.OWH to HJL, November 5, 1926, H-L, 2:893.

  11.OWH to CC, June 24, 1897, OWHC, 1-3; OWH to Henry Adams, December 31, 1907, MDHM, 12-8.

  12.OWH to FP, August 30, 1929, H-P, 2:252–53; OWH to HJL, May 12, 1927, H-L, 2:942.

  13.OWH to Lady Tweeddale, May 6, 1925, H-E, 239; OWH to Margaret Bevan, May 11, 1914, and August 19, 1913, OWHA, 1-1.

  14.Phillips, Frankfurter Reminisces, 79; OWH to John C. H. Wu, June 16, 1923, Wu, “Letters,” 261.

  15.OWH to LE, January 29, 1914, H-E, 88.

  16.Howe, Unitarian Conscience, 299; Holmes Sr., Elsie Venner, 63–64.

  17.H-E, xvi, xix.

  18.Brooks, Indian Summer, 184; Emerson, Journals and Notebooks 15:64–65.

  19.Brooks, Indian Summer, 95, 102; Adams, Education, 276; O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 235.

  20.Puelo, City So Grand, 70; O’Connor, Boston Irish, 60–64, 83–84.

  21.O’Connor, Boston Irish, 87–88, 93; Fox, Regimental Losses, 157; O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 237.

  22.O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 238–39; O’Connor, Boston Irish, 223, 233; Hofstadter, Age of Reform, 9; Howe, Unitarian Conscience, 295–96.

  23.Howe, Unitarian Conscience, 220–21.

  24.Anecdotes, FF, September 28, 1932, MDHM, 22-26; Biddle, Mr. Justice Holmes, 35–36.

  25.Anecdotes, FF, September 28, 1932, MDHM, 22-26.

  26.Howe, Shaping Years, 204; Introduction to the General Survey, November 28, 1911, CW, 3:440; Address to Brown University Commencement, 1897, CW, 3:518.

  27.OWH to Henry H. Brownell, May 9, 1865, quoted in Howe, Shaping Years, 196; WJ to Henry P. Bowditch, May 22, 1869, Hardwick, Selected Letters, 83.

  28.OWH to WJ, April 19, 1868, TCWJ, 1:509.

  29.Menand, Metaphysical Club, 59.

  30.O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 148–49.

  31.Howe, Unitarian Conscience, 300–1.

  32.Holmes Sr. to John Motley, December 22, 1871, LLH, 2:190; Brooks, Indian Summer, 102–7.

  33.OWH to John C. H. Wu, March 26, 1925, Wu, “Letters,” 275.

  34.“The Use of Law Schools,” November 5, 1886, CW, 3:475.

  35.OWH to Lady Burghclere, September 17, 1898, MDHM, 13-21.

  36.OWH to NG, July 17, 1896, MDHM, 3-16; entry for May 11, Diary of Trip to Europe, 1866, MDHM, 28-23; OWH to Lady Pollock, August 11, 1895, H-P, 1:59.

  37.The initial pages of Holmes’s trip diary, OWHP, 57-25, include a long list of people and places to see. The letters of introduction from Sumner and others are in OWHP, 57-24. Unless otherwise noted below, the details of Holmes’s trip are from his diary, a typewritten transcript of which is in MDHM, 28-23.

  38.Menand, Metaphysical Club, 205.

  39.Maitland, Leslie Stephen, 110–11, 115–16.

  40.Nesbitt, “Climbing Justice”; J. Monroe Thorington, American Alpine Club, to MDH, June 9, 1942, MDHM, 28-3.

  41.Leslie Stephen to OWH, December 7, 1866, in Maitland, Leslie Stephen, 186; Tom Hughes to OWH,
December 31, 1866, OWHP, 18-28; memorandum of talk with LH, June 11, 1942, MDHM, 22-7.

  42.OWH to CM, January 9, 1915, MDHM, 20-1.

  43.OWH to CC, August 9, 1897, MDHM, 13-24.

  44.AJH to OWH, July 3, 1866, MDHM, 15-27.

  45.Amelia Holmes to OWH, and postscript from AJH, July 16, 1866, MDHM, 15-28.

  46.WJ to Garth Wilkinson James, March 21, 1866, quoted in Menand, Metaphysical Club, 205.

  47.Menand, Metaphysical Club, 204.

  48.Ibid., 92–94.

  49.WJ to Thomas W. Ward, March 27, 1866, James, ed., Letters of William James, 1:75–76.

  50.WJ to Henry P. Bowditch, January 24, 1869, Hardwick, Selected Letters, 78.

  51.WJ to OWH, May 15, 1868, ibid., 61–62.

  52.WJ to OWH, September 17, 1867, ibid., 34–35.

  53.James, Son and Brother, 276–79.

  54.Menand, Metaphysical Club, 73–75; James, Son and Brother, 347–48, 398.

  55.Menand, Metaphysical Club, 205; James, Son and Brother, 430.

  56.Henry James recounted the actual New Hampshire trip in Son and Brother, 425–30. Holmes’s 1867 engagement book includes an entry for August 17–26, “off to N. Conway with John Gray” (OWHP, 57-25). A young neighbor girl who accompanied the group of adults on a hike remembered Holmes telling her “the tale of the ‘Green-eyed Monster’ which she knew to be the story of his devotion to a beautiful lady of the party and his envy of those he thought more favored.” The girl, Olivia Murray, related the incident to Learned Hand eighty years later and also dated the episode to August 1867 (LH to MDH, November 25, 1947, MDHM, 22-26; Howe, Shaping Years, 202–3). Holmes himself encountered her again in Washington in 1903 (“Mrs. Bayard Cutting whom I met as a girl of 10 in the White Mtns. We adored each other then”: OWH to EC, February 7, 1903, MDHM, 14-21).

  57.HJ to WJ, March 29, 1870, Edel, Selected Letters, 77; see also, LeClair, “Henry James and Temple”; Habegger, “William James and Temple”; and Habegger, “James’s Rewriting of Temple’s Letters.”

  58.Mary James to Alice James, January 1867, quoted in Strouse, Alice James, 99.

  59.OWH to NG, August 30, 1914, MDHM, 3-36; James, Son and Brother, 428, 479. Holmes told Nina Gray in this 1914 letter that he had “a little package of letters” from Minny Temple, but he apparently destroyed them before his death.

  60.HJ to OWH, July 29 [1867?], Howe, “Letters of James to Holmes,” 414. Howe dated the letter 1865, then revised that to 1868 (Howe, Shaping Years, 306 n. 59), but 1867 seems more likely from other evidence (see n. 56 above).