Touched With Fire

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR,, has attained the position reached by few, where everything he wrote, said, and did should be recorded in readily available form. An important joint contribution to Holmes lore is made by Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Howe, in this collection of the “Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.” The highly appropriate title was made possible by the justice himself in a Memorial Day address.

The contacts with fire of a junior officer of the 20th Regiment. Massachusetts Volunteers, and later an aidede-camp to the commanding general of the Sixth Corps, Hash vividly through more than three years of war. Participating in many important campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, and wounded in three of them, Holmes is not expounding theory. His diary, letters, sketches, and maps reveal a highly intelligent and brilliant young man outlining to his family details of life at the front. There are pleas for letters and more letters; familiar requests for personal articles, clothing, delicacies; an urgent call for the Atlantic Monthly. There burns enthusiasm for the cause he calls a crusade.

At times Holmes betrays pessimism for the success of Northern arms. There are the perennial “grousings” peculiar to soldier life, sharp criticism of inefficient superiors, and the normal querulousness evoked by unfair bestowal of credit for the deeds of one’s own organization. All are components of the esprit de corps of a good fighting unit. Writes Captain Holmes, “I really very much doubt whether there is any Regt wh. can compare with ours in the Army of the Potomac.”

There is an occasional trace of the colloquialisms and the colorful literary style of the future justice: “A bullet has a most villainous greasy slide through the air.” “My hand is cold so that I sling a nasty quill.” “ I irk the lengthened tale when told with pen.” The “utter absence of comfort is the least fault of that modern Gomorrah” — Washington.

Here controversy about accuracy of portrayal of the man, as in biography or the drama, is impossible. These are the genuine beginnings. Garb, title, and topic may be strange, but this is the youth who became Mr. Justice Holmes.

RAYMOND S. WILKINS