Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made law his life's work rather than following his father as a physician, educator and author. A lieutenant with the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers in the Civil War, he saw action at Bail's Bluff, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. He was seriously wounded in each of those encounters. After establishing a law practice in Boston, he became editor of the American Law Review and lectured on constitutional law and jurisprudence at Harvard. He wrote the book The Common Law. Appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1882, he was named chief justice in 1899. Two years later he was named to the U.S. Supreme Court, by President Theodore Roosevelt, where he served until 1932.