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Lt. Henry Livermore “Little” Abbott
& Capt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The Harvard Regiment
  As
for “Little” Abbott, nothing gave him more pleasure than infuriating
Oliver Wendell Holmes the Younger.
“But
Holmes, old boy, aren’t you one of our state’s foremost abolitionists?”
“Yes,
of course. ‘Emancipation is the demand of civilization. All else is
intrigue.’”
Abbott
could hear the quotation marks.
“Ah
– the universe according to Uncle Waldo.” He knew that would get Holmes
even more fired up.
“Professor
Emerson. And don’t ridicule him, Little. He is a tribute to Harvard
University.”
Abbott
didn’t much care for his nickname, but he too had grown up in the shadow
of a great man, and every gentleman in Massachusetts continued to call
him what his daddy called him. So “Little” it was and “Little” it would
always be.
“But
isn’t the President doing exactly what ‘Professor Emerson’ suggests?
Isn’t he freeing the slaves?”
“He
has freed no one! What to you think the Southern states are going
to do? Bow down and say ‘Yes, sir, Mister Lincoln. Whatever you say,
sir.’”
The preceding
passage is an excerpt
from No Greater Courage, and may not be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Read more in No Greater Courage:
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