Wounded Three Times in War, and the Oldest Serving Supreme Court Justice in History
Quick answer: Who was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was a Civil War officer in the 20th Massachusetts Infantry, wounded at Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932. He retired at 90, the oldest justice in the Court's history, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was born in Boston on March 8, 1841, the eldest of three children of the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. As an officer in the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, he was wounded three times: in the chest at Ball's Bluff, in the neck at Antietam, and in the foot near Fredericksburg during the Chancellorsville campaign. At Antietam, one bullet broke the buckle of his knapsack and another went through his neck. His father went looking for him and wrote about it in "My Hunt After the Captain," finally finding him on a train in Hagerstown, Maryland. One story about Holmes, disputed but often told, comes from July 1864, when Jubal Early's Confederates threatened Washington. Lincoln stood up on the parapet at Fort Stevens to watch, and Holmes is said to have shouted, "Get down, you fool!" Lincoln got down and later told him, "Captain, I'm glad you know how to talk to a civilian." Holmes left the Army in 1864 when his enlistment ended, weary and ill, and married Fanny Dixwell in 1872. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to the Supreme Court in December 1902. He served 29 years, earning the nickname the Great Dissenter, and retired on January 12, 1932, at 90, the oldest justice in the Court's history. Many of his best opinions came after he turned 80. The war shaped his view of the law: "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." He called the Constitution "an experiment, as all life is an experiment." Fanny died in 1929. He died two days before his 94th birthday and was buried beside her at Arlington with the military honors he had earned 70 years before.
Why it matters for leaders: Holmes carried what he learned under fire into three decades of judgment, and it showed in how he thought about freedom.
Q: Where was Holmes wounded?
A: At Ball's Bluff (1861), Antietam (1862), and near Fredericksburg during the Chancellorsville campaign (1863).
Q: Where is Holmes buried?
A: At Arlington National Cemetery, beside his wife, Fanny.
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By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation