St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1910-11-26
Hobb Cost Nation a Hero

of New Haven county, and who pre-
sided over the New Haven mass meet
ing which Lincoln addressed a few
days after he had delivered his Coop
er Union speech.
Il knew 'Alf' Terry as a boy here
in New Haven and as a student at
Yale said the judge to me when l
called upon him in the summer of 1872.
and was one Of the men who helped
to get him appointed clerk of the su.
perior court Of the state back in 1854.
while he was still two or three years
under thirty. You see, he had gradu-
ated from the Yale law school some
years before, but, somehow, he didn't
seem to be able to make the law go,
and so we got him the clerkship.
That was the year the Crimean
war broke out, and it hadn't been 60
ing on long before those of us who
knew him well discovered that 'Alf
Terry was taking a sudden and in
tense interest in the progress of the
campaign being conducted against
Russia by the allies. Why, he became
SO deeply immersed In the subject
that he actually neglected his duties
as clerk of the court bit, and not
being content to get the latest news
of the war at the breakfast table, like
the rest Of us. he got into the habit
of going to newspaper Office and sit
| ting there by the hour in the evenings,
awaiting such news as might come In
about the siege of Sebastopol and
other events. He became especially
excited about the war on the days
that he knew European mail was
due-we had no cables then-and not
infrequently on mail days he remained
at the newspaper Office awaiting war
news until the paper went to press.
'He carried his war enthusiasm still
further. He got together as good col
lection of maps of the war zone as he
could possibly lay his hands on. AS
news from the front drifted across
the Atlantic he traced upon his maps,
so far as he was able. the movements
of the troops.
1.-THE Crimean war ended, daresay
that 'Alf' Terry had a better knowl
edge Of the strategy employed by both
: sides than any other man In the state
or in several states, for that matter
He wrote and talked necessarily about
! it, yet for the diplomacy connected
with the war, or the politics thai
caused it, he knew practically nothing
: and cared less. And when the brie
: campaign Of the French against tn,
! Austrians was on in 1889, he spent al
his spare time studying the report
q reaching this country OF the battles o
Solferino and Magenta
1.-TWO years later, President Lincoll
Q issued his first cali for volunteers, an
'Alr Terry, who in the meantime ha
gained the rank Of colonel in the stat
|. militia through devotion to his hobby
u went to Bull Run at the head OF tn
n Seventh Connecticut infantry, and hi
: was one of the few regiments that r,
/ tired from that field in good order an
n helped to check the stampede.
o 1.-THE rest Of his career the worl
It knows" concluded Judge Foster "Br
ls I sometimes think that, II 'Alf' Teri
"a had not suddenly been seized with til
l idea to study the Crimean war seve
Is years before our great war broke, b
y probably would have remained vi
e. known to fame and would have ruste
u out behind the desk of the clerk
our superior court"
Copyright. 1910. by e. J. Edwards.)