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Holmes' famous
1884 Memorial Day speech: "In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched
With Fire"
Holmes' 1895
Memorial Day speech: "The Soldiers' Faith"
Holmes' resting
place at Arlington National Cemetery
Holmes' favorite poem: "Soldier Buried on the
Battlefield"
Other web pages about Holmes
The most famous Harvard man of the
Twentieth
Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was
a towering figure in American jurisprudence, and one of the
Twentieth Century's most influential public figures. Holmes the
soldier served with distinction, surviving three wounds and rising
to the rank of Captain in the Twentieth
Massachusetts Infantry. He later served as Brevet Colonel and
aide-de-camp on the staff of Sixth Corps General Horatio Wright.
Holmes is of course better known as "The Great Dissenter".
For
thirty years, from 1902 to 1932, Holmes' brilliant intellect held
sway over the US Supreme Court, and immeasurably influenced the
American legal system. According to no less an authority than The
Honorable Richard Posner, present day Chief Federal Judge of the
Seventh Circuit, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was "the most
illustrious figure in the history of American law". (Take that,
Johnnie Cochran!)
Anecdotes about Holmes' numerous contacts
with American Presidents highlight his status as a major figure in
American intellectual and cultural history.
- During the late 1840s, John Quincy
Adams, born in 1761, and President from 1825 to 1829, was a
frequent visitor to the Holmes household and was a mentor to young
"Wendell".
- In 1864, 23-yr-old Holmes the soldier
was at Fort Stevens, near Washington, D.C., while it was under
Confederate assault. He screamed at a tall civilian in a suit and
top hat recklessly peering over the fortress wall: "GET DOWN, YOU
DAMNED FOOL!". The civilian was President Lincoln, who immediately
complied.(The authenticity of this story has been
questioned.)
- In 1902 we find the 61-yr-old Holmes,
being considered for a US Supreme Court nomination by President
Theodore Roosevelt, secretly visiting the family summer home at
Sagamore Hills, NY, and regaling the Roosevelt children with
stories of his Civil War service. (Indeed fellow soldier Teddy
Roosevelt knew little of Holmes' judicial writings, and nominated
him based on admiration for an 1895 speech by
Holmes on "The Soldier's Faith").
- In 1924, Holmes received the Roosevelt
Medal for distinguished public service from President Calvin
Coolidge in a public ceremony.
- In 1933, retired Supreme Court Justice
Holmes was paid a courtesy call by President-elect Franklin
Roosevelt. Holmes was found reading Plato in the Greek language.
When Roosevelt asked the reason, Holmes, then 92 years old,
answered, "Why, to improve my mind". Holmes then told a spellbound
Roosevelt anecdotes of the Battle of Bunker Hill, as witnessed by
Holmes' grandmother.
- While President Richard Nixon never
met Holmes, Nixon will forever be linked with one of Holmes'
Supreme Court law clerks--the infamous Alger Hiss, who died in
1996.
For all his fame and accomplishments as a
jurist and legal scholar, Holmes took the most pride from his
service with the Harvard Regiment. Using his immense talents as a
writer, he paid homage throughout his long life to his fellow
Harvard men of the 20th Mass. One of the most quoted Memorial Day
speeches ever given was a brilliant 1884 Holmes'
address containing the phrase: "In our
youth our hearts were touched with fire". This 1884 speech
also contains touching tributes to fallen 20th Massachusetts
comrades.
Holmes' life-long wish was to be interred
with his fellow soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. When he was
laid to rest in 1935, eight infantrymen raised their rifles and
fired three volleys, one for each of the battles in which Holmes was
wounded: Ball's Bluff, Antietam and Second Fredericksburg. Holmes' gravesite
at Arlington rests under a tree, not far from another
Massachusetts native, John F. Kennedy. The very top of Holmes'
gravestone lists what this Supreme Court Justice and legal icon
considered his greatest honor in life: "Captain and Brevet Colonel,
20th Mass. Volunteer Infantry".
*
"The Magnificent Yankee" is the
title of a 1950 Hollywood movie about Holmes. |
