Mr Justice Holmes in England 1866
D.H. Burton describes how, aged twenty-five, Holmes, an influential future US supreme court justice, paid a summer visit during which he made many distinguished friendships.
The American Civil War had been over just a year when in May, 1866, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. set sail from Boston on the Persia, bound for Liverpool and a summer holiday in England. He was following a path well beaten by his famous father, Dr Holmes, ‘the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table’. Acquainted personally with many English men of letters, Dr Holmes had been perennially popular in England because of his many writings so that the father’s reputation advantageously preceded his son’s visit.
Wendell Holmes, just twenty-five years of age, had already seen something of life... and death. Fresh from Harvard College, he had been commissioned an officer in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in July, 1861. By September his regiment had moved south and the young lieutenant had come under enemy fire. His record of service and bravery over the course of the next three years was extraordinary. Three times he suffered serious wounds and, by the end of his enlistment period, had been promoted lieutenant-colonel.
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