The Civil War
Holmes’ son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., abandoned his studies at Harvard College to join the Massachusetts Volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was wounded on October 21, 1861, at the battle of Ball’s Bluff, in Virginia, and attended by a Philadelphia physician, William Hunt (1825-1896). Wendell Holmes returned to active duty and was again wounded, on September 17, 1862, at Antietam. His father left Boston to seek his son after this second incident and subsequently published an account of this affair in The Atlantic monthly. Here, he describes some of the aftermath of the battle which he observed.
Holmes wrote about his son’s recuperation to William Hunt—later referring to Wendell’s injuries as “those two new button-holes in his congenital waistcoat.”
This patriotic musical poem was first printed in the June issue of The Atlantic monthly and also as part of a program for a prize-giving ceremony at the Boston Latin School on May 25, 1861, just a few weeks after Confederate forces began firing on Fort Sumter. Many handbill printings of the hymn followed, including this one from New York.