Alfred Terry

Alfred Howe Terry

Alfred Howe Terry (born November 10, 1827 in Hartford , Connecticut , † December 16, 1890 in New Haven ) was a general in the US Army and from 1866 to 1869, and from 1872 to 1886 military commander of the Dakota Territory .

Beginnings and careers

Terry was born in Hartford, but his family soon moved to New Haven, where he spent most of his childhood. After graduating from Yale Law School , Terry became a lawyer in 1848 and was employed by the New Haven Supreme Court.

Civil war

South carolina

When the Civil War began, Terry raised a regiment of Connecticut volunteers and led them to war. He was given the rank of colonel . The regiment fought in the first Battle of Bull Run , after which Terry and his regiment were transferred to South Carolina . He was promoted to Brigadier General of the Volunteers on April 26, 1862 and assigned to the Morris Island Division of X Corps . In 1863 Terry took part in the Siege of Charleston and Morris Island . His troops continued a gun battle at Grimball's Landing and captured Fort Wagner in September 1863 . The following year, the entire X Corps was relocated north, where it served under Benjamin Franklin Butler in the James Army in Virginia .

Virginia

Terry's Morris Island Division was renamed 1st Division of X Corps and fought in the Battle of Proctor's Creek and the Bermuda Hundred Campaign near Richmond , Virginia. When the Siege of Petersburg began, Terry fought in the battles north of the James , particularly the Battle of New Market Heights . After the death of David B. Birney , the commanding general of X Corps, Terry led this until its dissolution, along with a promotion to brevet - Major General of Volunteers.

Fort Fisher and North Carolina

Terry's greatest success of the war came when he took command of the Fort Fisher Expeditions Corps . Benjamin Butler had tried unsuccessfully to capture Fort Fisher at the end of 1864 . Terry got the trust of the Army Commander in Chief Ulysses S. Grant to lead a second expedition against the fort. Unlike Butler, Terry sought collaboration with the Navy under the command of David Porter . On January 13, 1865 Terry sent a division of black Union troops to the north side of Fort Fisher, where they should prevent Confederate troops under Braxton Bragg from coming to the fort's aid. His other division, under the command of Adelbert Ames , he also sent to the north side of the fort, where they should attack the fort in the other direction. After intense close combat, the Union troops were able to conquer the fort. For the capture of the fort, Terry was promoted to the full rank of major general of the volunteers and brigadier general of the regular army on January 16, 1865 . After reinforcements arrived the following February, John McAllister Schofield took over command of the campaign against Wilmington , North Carolina . After the fall of Wilmington, the Fort Fisher Expeditionary Corps was renamed X Corps and Terry took command again. He then took part in the remaining parts of the Carolina campaign. He is considered to be one of the most capable generals of the civil war, even though he had no classical military training.

Activities after the war

Terry stayed in the military after the war. He was involved in drafting the Fort Laramie Peace Treaty in 1868, which ended Chief Red Cloud's campaign against American troops in the region.

Terry became a staunch opponent of the Ku Klux Klan after he was appointed Military Commander of the 3rd Military District in Atlanta . He served there from December 22, 1869.

In the early 1970s, Terry was President of the Terry Board , a commission charged with the procurement of a . 45-70 with a bolt developed by Erskine S. Allin, the chief gunsmith of the National Armory, Springfield . On June 6, 1872, the American Congress passed a loan of $ 150,000 for the manufacture of this rifle in the National Armory, which was used with the Model 1873 and its later variants in the Indian Wars and was the orderly weapon of the US Armed Forces until 1894.

During what is now known as the Centenniel Campaign of 1876–1877, Terry was in command of an army column that was supposed to pacify the Indians suspected in Montana in the area where the Little Bighorn and Rosebud Rivers meet in the Yellowstone River . Two other associations ( George Crook from the south and John Gibbon from the west) should support him. At the destination, Terry assigned General Custer with the reconnaissance of the areas south of the Yellowstone River. Some time later he himself discovered the bodies of General Custer and his men on the battlefield of the Battle of Little Bighorn . In October 1877 he traveled to Canada to negotiate with Chief Sitting Bull . Terry's command was also involved during the Nez Percé War and sent reinforcements to attack Chief Joseph .

In 1886 Terry became a regular major general and was given command of the Missouri Division, headquartered in Chicago . In 1888 he left the army due to illness. Terry died two years later in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was buried in Grove Street Cemetery.

literature

• John W. Bailey, Pacifying the Plains: General Alfred Terry and the Decline of the Sioux, 1866-1890. Westport, CT 1979.
• Roger Darling, A Sad and Terrible Blunder: Generals Terry and Custer at the Little Bighorn . Vienna, VA 1990.
• Chris E. Fonvielle, The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope. 1997, ND Mechanicsburg, PA 2001.
• Edward G. Longacre, Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865. Mechanicsburg, PA 1997.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Terry  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Alfred Terry in the database of Find a Grave (English)