Henry Livermore Abbott - Brevet Awards and Posthumous Praise

Brevet Awards and Posthumous Praise

Henry Livermore Abbott's service and exploits had gained him some notoriety so news of his death was met with consternation and grief at the highest levels of command and back in Lowell, Massachusetts. Holmes later said that Abbott was a friend whose death "seemed to end a portion of our life also."

On December 12, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Major Abbott for the award of the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general, United States Volunteers, to rank from August 1, 1864. The United States Senate confirmed the award on February 20, 1865. On February 15, 1867, President Andrew Johnson nominated Major Abbott for the award of the honorary grades of brevet lieutenant colonel, brevet colonel, and brevet brigadier general, United States Army (Regular Army), to rank from March 13, 1865. The U. S. Senate confirmed the awards on March 2, 1867.

Abbott has been said to have been the most widely known and admired officer of his grade (or "rank") in the Army of the Potomac. Major General John Sedgwick said that Abbott was "a wonderfully good soldier" and "a bright, particular star." Major General Winfield Scott Hancock said "his reputation was built upon a solid foundation, and the closest scrutiny could not diminish it." Abbott's extensive correspondence with his family provides an especially good record of the engagements in which he fought and the generals and other personalities with whom he came into contact. Yet, over 90 percent of it remained unpublished until 1991.

Henry Livermore Abbott's good friend, future United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who served in the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment with him, deeply admired Abbott for his courage and unruffled calm, and for his determination to do his duty even though he was deeply skeptical of Union war aims (except for preservation of the Union), was politically opposed to President Lincoln, and did not support the abolition of slavery because he thought it would die out in the near future. Holmes considered Abbott an ideal soldier, and praised him in a famous 1884 Memorial Day speech stating that: "In action he was sublime."