Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist noted for his concise, pithy rejection of the prevailing property-rights ideology embraced by other judges of his time, and for his deference to the decisions of democratically-elected legislatures. He was called The Great Dissenter and The Yankee from Olympus.

Holmes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of the prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.. As a young man, Holmes loved literature and supported the Abolitionist movement which thrived in Boston society during the 1850s. He graduated from Harvard University in 1861.

After graduation, Holmes joined the United States Army at the outset of the American Civil War. He saw much action, from the Peninsula Campaign to the Wilderness, and suffered wounds at the Battle of Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville. He was mustered out in 1864 as a brevet Lieutenant Colonel. Many historians have traced Holmes' advocacy of legal realism as well as his hard-edged rejection of romanticism and natural rights theory to his war experiences. Holmes' letters to his parents during the war reflect a hard-bitten callousness to the loss of human life, a necessary defense mechanism for a man who had seen so many friends killed in so many bloody battles. Holmes recalled later that he was not a natural soldier but preferred intellectual pursuits.

In July 1864, the Confederate general Jubal Early conducted a raid north of Washington, D.C. (the Battle of Fort Stevens), and President Abraham Lincoln came out to watch the troops skirmishing. At six foot four, with his stovepipe hat adding eight inches to his height, Lincoln stood on the parapet, watching smoke puffs from Confederate snipers, seemingly unafraid, even when an officer three feet from him was dropped by a Confederate bullet. A 23-year old Oliver Wendell Holmes saw this foolhardy target sticking up, and not realizing it was the President of the United States, shouted, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!" When Lincoln turned to leave the parapet, a sniper hit him. Holmes was ordered by General Horatio Wright to fetch a doctor, although both men knew Lincoln was dead.