Letters from the Front – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Sunday, March 25, 1862

In a letter to his parents Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote that he arrived in Washington, D.C. and that the regiment would likely be on the move in a day or two. He quipped, "Officers have reduced baggage to a very few portables – Nobody knows – but we may go on a naval expedition – Whatever happens keep up your pluck …"¹

References:

¹Marc DeWolfe Howe, editor, Touched with Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 37-38.