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."