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battle of bull run

Touched With Fire – Oliver Wendell Holmes and America’s Deadliest Day

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., left Boston in 1861 an ideological foot soldier for the Union Army. He returned from the war – thanks to some amazing luck – a somber, pragmatic man whose father made him a household name.

Holmes served as a lieutenant in the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, known as the Harvard Regiment because it drew all its officers and many of its members from Harvard University. Holmes had just graduated when he departed Boston to fight for the great cause of his day – the abolition of slavery.

Oliver Wendell Holmes – junior and senior

Holmes’ mother was an ardent abolitionist. His father – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., – opposed slavery, but far less adamantly than his hot-headed son. Holmes, Sr.. was a physician and best-selling author, poet and essayist. He felt both pride and fear for his son.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., at War

The 20^th Massachusetts missed out on the first battle of Bull Run. After that it engaged in every major Civil War battle until the fighting ended. Holmes, Jr., was wounded three times.

He first was shot in the chest at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. He nearly died. Holmes’ father had given him a supply of laudanum to take with him. He almost took the medicine to end his life because he believed he was near to death. His field doctors persuaded him to hold off.

Holmes took a train to head back to Boston to recuperate, and his father travelled to Pennsylvania to meet his son and bring him home.

After a six-month convalescence, Holmes returned to his unit. In June of 1862 at the Battle of Glendale the true cost of the war became clear to the young officer. As the Union and Confederate Armies lined up to do battle, he scanned down the line of soldiers and saw his cousin. He gave a salute, then looked away. When he looked back his cousin had gone. Dead.

Three months later the 20^th Massachusetts assembled as part of the massive Union force that would square off against the rebels at Antietam in Maryland. It was the first attempt by the southern forces to attack in the north, and it was the deadliest day ever in America. Thousands died on both sides. Casualties topped 20,000.

Dead confederate artillery men littering the battlefield at Antietam

The northern forces won, but the immense cost made it a national tragedy. The victory gave Abraham Lincoln the lift he needed to announce his Emancipation Proclamation. That effectively blocked the British from aiding the southern states. The anti-slavery British would never join with the confederacy in reestablishing slavery once abolished.

Back in Boston, Holmes, Sr., received a telegram the day after the battle. His son had been shot again – this time through the neck. The father’s mind flooded with fear, and he joined others heading south to again rescue their sons.

The Journey South

Holmes, Sr., would write about his journey for Atlantic magazine. He told of the bodies stacked atop one another, the wounded everywhere. Holmes bounced from town to town and hospital to hospital on the trail of his son, always just one step behind. He finally stationed himself in Harrisburg, searching among the wounded on train after train coming north. His story of his journey movingly captured the fears of all Americans for the soldiers at war . It also crystalized the risks the young took on the battlefields.

Finally Holmes found his son in the first seat on a northbound train. Their greeting to each other seemed remarkably free of emotion: “How are you, boy?” senior said. “How are you, father?” replied junior. In publishing his story, Holmes made his son famous – an everyman and hero in the war for the union.

A Third Time

Holmes, Jr., would recover and return to his unit, but he hadn’t finished dodging death. One final time he was shot in the heel at Chancellorsville in 1863.

The 20^th Massachusetts would fight until the end of the war, but Holmes declined to reenlist when his time was up in 1864. Exhausted and sick of war, he returned home and to Harvard, where he studied law. Though Holmes went on to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice for nearly 30 years, his experience in the Civil War was the greatest event in his life. He would always remember it with pride and sadness.

Speaking to a group of veterans, he said: “…the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us.

But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.”

This story was updated in 2022.

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The 2nd New Hampshire Regiment Fights the 1st Battle of Bull Run

Ai B. Thompson, a 28-year-old lieutenant in the 2^nd New Hampshire Regiment of the Union Army, fought in the first battle of the Civil War. Only he probably wouldn’t have called it ‘fighting.’

The Battle of Bull Run

That battle was the Battle of Bull Run. On July 21, 1861, Confederate forces routed Union troops that tried to cross Bull Run, a tributary of the Potomac River. Hundreds of spectators, some with picnic baskets, rode the 15 miles from Washington, D.C., to watch the battle. They fully expected a victory.

The 2^nd New Hampshire Regiment didn’t get much of a chance to fight. “They were nowhere and did nothing,” wrote Thompson in a letter to his father in Concord, N.H., three days after the battle. The regiment drew up in line awaiting orders, he wrote. But no orders came, ‘all the while cannon balls and shells flying and bursting about our ears.’

2nd New Hampshire

Both sides were poorly trained and poorly led. Thompson was disgusted with the leadership of the Union Army and of his regiment. Every order they did get was a blunder, and every movement was a failure. He wrote,

There was no fault in the men thank God: they are brave fellows as ever heard the music of whistling bullets, and it was too bad to expose them to be cut down and mangled, when they could not return the enemy’s fire.

Gen. Irvin McDowell commanded the Union forces though he had no combat experience. McDowell had buckled to pressure to march to Richmond and capture the enemy’s capital. His troops were met at Bull Run by a Confederate army as ill trained as his own. Irvin ordered a surprise attack on the enemy’s left flank, which at first put the rebels on the defensive. But under Gen. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, Confederate forces held their ground, and soon reinforcements came by train from the Shenandoah Valley.

Wrote Thompson,

Regiment after regiment of our troops advanced up the hill in solid column towards the enemies batteries and discharged volley after volley into the rebel ranks but everyone retreated in disorder and confusion leaving many dead and dying on the field. With painful anxiety I watched the successively retreating columns. Till I saw the bloody Zouaves advancing up the hill in the face of the enemy’s fire … and then I thought of victory. But the Goddess of victory perched not on their banner; they too retreated in great disorder, leaving three hundred of their brave fellows dead or dying in the field.

Ai B. Thompson

After the battle, Gen. George McClellan replaced McDowell.

According to A history of the Second regiment, New Hampshire volunteer infantry, in the war of the rebellion, this is what happened to Lt. Ai B. Thompson:

In August, 1861, was promoted to Captain 18th U.S. Infantry, and distinguished himself at Perrysville and Murfreesboro. Brevetted Major for gallantry, and was retired for disability from wounds. Department Commander of the G. A. R. in 1888. Elected Secretary of State for New Hampshire in 1877, which position he held until his death, which occurred at Concord Sept. 12. 1890.

First Battle of Bull Run, by Kurz & Allison. Licensed under public domain via Wikimedia Commons. With thanks to War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars by Andrew Carroll. This story last updated in 2022.

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Columbus Smith Found Fortune Abroad, Sadness at Home.

Columbus Smith, a Vermont lawyer, found in 1844 he could make a fortune by researching old deeds to locate the rightful heirs of English estates. For the next two decades he pursued other peoples’ inheritances, taking a cut for himself. He married, built an eye-popping mansion in Salisbury and collected antiquities. Part I of this story is here.

Columbus Smith

Columbus Smith seemed to set his life on a safe and sedate course, returning to live in Salisbury, Vt., after years spent in New York and Europe. If there is a lesson to his story, perhaps it is to never slow down because you don’t know what may be chasing you. In Smith’s case, he was chased by a series of calamities.

His first serious setback occurred in 1881. Columbus and Harriet’s son William, then 14, died of meningitis. The couple constructed an ornate mausoleum on their property, with glass shelves to hold its residents encased in glass-topped coffins. William was the first to occupy a space in the building.

Lost Hope

The death rattled Columbus Smith. His children’s former tutor, Irving Bacheller, by then living in New York, returned to Salisbury for a visit. He found Smith’s grief over the death of his son – “the main hope of his life” – had taken a harsh toll. It aged Columbus Smith and softened his mind.

After William died, Smith remained active in business and charitable affairs. He continued investing and building. He and Harriet spent one winter in Los Angeles, and he traveled to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the Columbian Exposition.

Mary (Smith) McDowell

But daughter Mary was a growing concern. There are hints that during this time Mary, affectionately known as Pinky, was not well. She travelled to the American desert in the Southwest for health reasons. In 1896, however, it was announced that she would be married to Dr. Alexander McDowell of Bowling Green, Va.

McDowell was the son of Gen. Irvin McDowell, who led the Union troops in their ill-fated battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. Alexander had first followed in his father’s footsteps, enrolling at the West Point military academy. He completed his education at the Medical School of Columbian College, now George Washington University, and entered the Marine Corps.

Another Blow

The wedding would, of course, be a grand celebration. First scheduled for St. Stephen’s Church in Middlebury, the ceremony was performed at Shard Villa, and it was the talk of the county.

A little more than a year later, Mary died of tuberculosis. Seeing his last child join her brother in the family mausoleum apparently pushed the elderly Columbus Smith into depression.

Decline and Delusions

Columbus Smith grew acerbic and less attentive to details. His wife would later say that 1897 was the year she had to ‘get into harness’ and begin working to maintain their estate and wealth.

After leading a largely healthy life, Columbus Smith twice checked into sanitariums. Doctors treated him for his depression and Bright’s disease, then sent him home with medication. Harriet believed he would have avoided much misery if he had started taking his medication as soon as his daughter had died.

The decade of decline following Mary’s death was marked by paranoid delusions. Smith believed people were trying to steal his fortune, and he even made allegations against his wife. By the end, he had lost the power of speech, only able to make sounds. Smith died in November 1909.

Once Prominent

His obituaries noted that he was ‘at one time’ a prominent power in Vermont. Originally thought to have millions, he left an estate appraised at $340,000. It included far-flung properties in Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas and the Dakotas as well as New England.

In his will, Columbus Smith expressed the intent that Shard Villa should be converted to a nursing home for ‘old Christian women not addicted to drink.’ He stipulated the residual of his estate should fund its operation. Upon Harriet’s death in 1919, that’s what the mansion became – but not without one more legal entanglement. Would Columbus Smith have wanted it any other way?

The Final Probate Showdown

Anna Perry of Gardiner, Mass., and Fred Page of Ludlow, Vt. – a grandniece and grandnephew—challenged Smith’s will, which was written and amended from 1897 to 1903. They argued he was insane when he largely disinherited his family.

They pointed to curious details, such as a bequest of $1 to his brother-in-law ‘to buy a feather for his cap when he played soldier or a whistle and rattle to amuse himself in his declining years.’

To his wife, he left $25,000 ‘or $50,000 if she preferred.’ Such statements could be seen as whimsical, or evidence of mental decline. The Addison County Court heard from 112 witnesses, many of them friends and neighbors divided on the question of his sanity over the last decade of his life. After a hung jury couldn’t decide the matter on the first go-round, the Addison County Court declared the will valid.

Harriet Smith

Harriet, who had considerable wealth of her own apart from her husband’s, could have easily afforded to settle the case with her relatives. She declined to do so, fighting until the end to defend the will.

In 1914, the Supreme Court also upheld the will, which allowed for the establishment of the rest home at Shard Villa.

What happened next…

Shard Villa today remains an active and functioning nursing home. It entered a period of instability, and its board of trustees envisioned closing it in 2008. It has since undergone a revival, however, and is home to 15-to-18 residents.

On the grounds of the mansion, the mausoleum holds four bodies: Columbus, Harriet, William and Mary. A place for Mary’s husband Alexander B. McDowell remains empty.

In another tragic twist to the story, Alexander McDowell slit his own throat in 1908 while living in New York City. He had continued his relationship with the Smiths, traveling to Vermont to see them. And had he outlived Smith, he was to receive $2,000 from the estate, a room in perpetuity at the Shard Villa and the option to be resident physician at the facility if he wished.

Collections of haunted house stories also include Shard Villa, claiming Columbus Smith remains unsettled and still wanders the grounds from time to time.

Images: Photographer Don Shall’s Flickr Album; Middlebury College Special Collections; Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History’s Shard Villa and its People Exhibit.

This story about Columbus Smith was updated in 2022.

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