ABSTRACT
Oliver Wendell Holmes had already made the decision to leave Harvard and join up to fight in the Civil War when he composed this entry for the Harvard Class Album in 1861. Although it has been suggested that he composed it in military camp, it seems that he wrote it at home in Boston while he was awaiting a commission. Holmes located himself very firmly within the history of his nation, his state, and above all the republican aristocracy that was Brahmin Boston, his membership of which derived from a combination of familial and educational tradition. It was this tradition, one that had revolved around religion but had evolved into a more secular sense of social and cultural duty, which took Holmes to war in 1861. Holmes had, as his concluding comments made clear, decided to follow his maternal line's tradition his grandfather had been a judge by pursuing a career in the law once the war was over.
