10 Facts Battle of Ball's Bluff-- Part 5: The 'Harvard Regiment" and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Fact 6:  Future Supreme Court Justice  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,  survived a nearly fatal wound at Ball's Bluff.

Shortly after graduating from Harvard , Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,  secured a commission in the  in the 20th Massachusetts Infantry.  Holmes and his fellow officers in the 20th were Harvard graduates and close friends, and the regiment later became known as the "Harvard Regiment."

Holmes sustained his first major injury during the war at Ball's Bluff--  The 20th Massachusetts' first engagement.  They accompanied Devens across the Potomac River and was present  on the morning of October 21st.

At about 4:30 in the afternoon, Holmes was shot in the chest, a wound that was nearly fatal.  Holmes recovered, only to be wounded again at Antietam and again at Chancellorsville.  

He went on to serve as America's most influential and longest-serving Supreme Court Justice, a seat he held until the age of 90.

--Old Secesh