Alfred Howe Terry (November 10, 1827 –
December 16, 1890) was a Union general in the American Civil War and the military
commander of the Dakota Territory from 1866 to 1869 and again from 1872 to 1886.
Early life and career
Although born in Hartford, Connecticut, Alfred Terry's family quickly moved to
New Haven, where he spent most of his childhood. After attending Yale Law School in 1848, Terry became a lawyer and was appointed clerk
of the Superior Court of New Haven County.
Civil War
South Carolina
When the Civil War started, Terry raised and led a regiment of Connecticut volunteers and was appointed colonel. The regiment
fought at First Bull Run, after which Terry and his regiment were transferred
to South Carolina. He was appointed brigadier
general of volunteers in April, 1862 and placed in command of the Morris Island Division of the X Corps. Terry was heavily involved in the siege operations against Charleston during 1863 and Morris
Island, South Carolina. Troops under Terry's direct command were engaged at a
skirmish at Grimball's Landing and later succeeded in capturing Fort Wagner in September 1863, but the following year the entire X Corps was sent north to Benjamin Butler's Army of the James in
Virginia.
Virginia
Terry's Morris Island Division was redesignated the 1st Division, X Corps, and fought at the Battle of Proctor's Creek and in the Bermuda
Hundred Campaign around Richmond. Once the Siege of Petersburg began, Terry continued to fight in the battles north of the James River, notably at the Battle of New Market
Heights. Upon the death of X Corps commander David B. Birney in October, Terry
briefly assumed command of the corps before it was dissolved. His leadership was never in question, but he had not achieved the
same battlefield glory that many of his counterparts had won by this time in the war.
Fort Fisher and North Carolina
Terry's greatest achievement of the war came when he was placed in command of the Fort Fisher Expeditionary Corps. Benjamin
Butler had previously failed in an expedition against Fort Fisher at the end of 1864. Terry
had gained the confidence of General Ulysses S. Grant and was now in command of the
ground forces in a second expedition against the fort. Unlike Butler, Terry worked well with the Navy under the command of
David D. Porter. On January 13, 1865, Terry sent a division of United States Colored Troops
to hold off Confederate forces under Braxton
Bragg to the north of Fort Fisher. He sent his other division under Adelbert Ames
against the northern part of the fort. After hand-to-hand fighting, the Union troops took control of the fort. For his part in
the Battle of Fort Fisher, Terry was promoted to major general of volunteers and brigadier general in the
regular army. Reinforcements arrived in February and John
M. Schofield arrived to take overall command of the campaign against Wilmington, North Carolina. After the fall of
Wilmington, the Fort Fisher Expeditionary Corps was renamed the X Corps, with Terry remaining in command, and participated
in the final stages of the Carolinas Campaign. He is generally considered one of the
most capable generals with no previous military training to emerge from the war.
Postbellum activities
Alfred Terry after the war
After the war, Terry stayed with the military. He helped negotiate the Treaty
of Fort Laramie (1868), which ended Red Cloud's campaign against American troops in the
region. Terry became a strong opponent of the Ku Klux Klan after being assigned as the last
military governor of the Third Military District, based in Atlanta, where he served beginning December 22, 1869.
Terry was the commander of the U.S. Army column marching westward into the Montana Territory during what is now popularly
known as the Centennial Campaign in 1876–77. Two other columns marched toward the same objective area (George Crook's from the south and John Gibbon's from the west). A
column of troops under his command arrived shortly after the Battle of Little Big
Horn and discovered the bodies of Custer's men. In October 1877, he went
to Canada to negotiate with Sitting Bull. He was still in
command in Montana during the Nez Perce War and sent
reinforcements to intercept Chief Joseph.
In 1886, Terry was promoted to major general and was given command of the Division of
the Missouri, headquartered in Chicago. He died four years later in New Haven,
Connecticut, where he is buried in Grove Street Cemetery.
External links
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