The story of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the Civil War is an epic one waiting to be told in its entirety. It is the story of the bravery, agony, glory, and the startling impact the War had on Holmes – a man who donned a blue uniform on July 10, 1861 to serve in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment and who did so honorably and at great risk until he was discharged on July 17, 1864. Over those 1,103 days, Holmes witnessed suffering and death on the fields of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Fredericksburg. The carnage of it all changed him forever.

Brave as he was, he emerged damaged, but determined to honor those soldiers who dedicated their lives to their duty. In personal letters, poetic eulogies, Memorial Day tributes, and in his judicial opinions, Holmes brought his war memories back to life and transformed them into a Darwinian-like jurisprudence of free speech – the fight in the market place of ideas.

Ronald K.L. Collins was the Harold S. Shefelman scholar at the University of Washington, School of Law until 2018. He has served as a Supreme Court Fellow under Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and was a scholar at the Newseum’s First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C. from 2001-2009. He is on the editorial board of SCOTUSblog, the daily blog that covers the proceedings of the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Collins is the author of some dozen books on law and literature, and has published in numerous scholarly journals including the Harvard and Stanford Law Reviews.

NOTE: this meeting is being conducted through Zoom.  You MUST REGISTER to receive instructions for joining the meeting the day. The information will be emailed to you the day before the event.

Basic written instructions for using Zoom may be found here and a brief video tutorial may be found here.