Law and Society Commons^™

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. spent three terrible years fighting in the Civil War. By any standard his experience was horrific. He was wounded three times, suffered a nearly fatal bout of dysentery, and endured the deaths of many of his closest friends. Without doubt, it was the most affecting period of his life. Unfortunately, however, the accounts of Holmes’ wartime experience have been notably superficial. Part of the problem has been the fact that, until recently, the chief source of information about these years was Holmes’ own diary and letters. The difficulty with these as a source has been twofold. …