Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to William Hunt

Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to William Hunt

Correspondence

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894 (author)

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1841-1935

Hunt, William

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. 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.”

Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) to William Hunt concerning Holmes' son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

1863 May 25

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Papers of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1838-1890 (inclusive). GA 38

text

1 manuscript letter (4 pages)

English

text

DigID0002212-0002214

Purchased for the Boston Medical Library, 1947