Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1910-12-16
Hobby That Gave the unlted
States a Hero.
General Terry. When : Young Court
Clerk Was an Enthusiastic
Student OF War and lts
Strategy.
sv u. .. EDWARDS.

~ the hlbtory OF the Civil war Gen
Alfred II. Terry Is known as the her,
Of Fort Fisher. since he was the maj
who. In January OF 1865, led the sue
cehsful assault upon the last remain
Ing important stronghold Of the Con
tederacy upon the Atlantic seaboard
Eleven years later. a. brigadIer gen
eral In the regular army he agar
came prominently before the countr,
a. the commander Of the main column
which drove Sitting Bull and his fol
lowers into Canada after the Custel
massacre on the Little Big Horn.
One OF the leading New Haven
Conn, men of other days who never
tired OF talking Of General Terry was
the late Judge e. X. Foster. who was
Tor many years prosecuting attorney
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.
4 knew ALI Terry as boy here
In New Haven and as a student at
Yale" said the jn1ge To me when |
called upon him In the summer of 1872
and | was one Of the men who helped
TO get him appointed clerk of the SUI
perfor 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 'beaable to make the law go.
and SO we got him the clerkshlp,
Ekere we knww his legal training
'wt-rid come in handy.
That was the year the Crimean
war broke out. and II hadn't been go.
ing on long before those of us who
knew him well discovered that Air
Terry was taking 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 a bit. and not
being content to get the latest news
of the war at tho breakfast table. like
the rest Of Us. he got into the habit
OF going to a nrrs,Y-,er ccfce 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 mall days he remained
at the newspaper ONCE awaiting war
news until the paper went to press.
He carried his war enthusiasm stiii
He got together as good col
lection OF maps of the war zone AZ he
could possibly lay his hands on. Az
news from the front drifted across
the Atlantic he traced upon his maps,
so far as he was able, the movements
Of the troops. remember seeing him
one evening bending over his maps
and tracing with a pencil certain lines
which indicated to him the movement
Of the troops. That same evening he
detailed to me what he believed would
be the inevitable strategy Of the cam
pafgn. AS he did so his face became
flushed with excitement, his eyes
took on the CLEAN OF the enthusiast
and | could not help saying to my
self: What is "Alf" Terry doing In
he clerks ONCE Of court?
THE Crlmean war ended, / daresay
hat All Terry had q better kfiowl-
edge of the strategy employed by both
sides than any other man in the state,
IT in several states, for that matter.
He wrote and talked necessarily about
I. yet for the diplomacy connected
With the war. or the politics that
.aused II. he knew practically nothing
ind cared less. And when the brief
OF the French against the
Austrians was on in 1859. he spentuall
lis spare time studying the reports
'eaching this country OF the battles Of
,olferino and Magenta.
1.-TWO years later. President Lincoln
ssued his first call for volunteers. and
ALT Terry, who In the meantime had
,ained the rank Of colonel in the state
militia through devotion to his hobby,
vent to Bull Run at the head OF the
seventh Connecticut infantry, and his
vas one Of the few regiments that re-
ired from that field in good order and
Helped to check the stampede.
The rest of his career the world
lnows," concluded Judge Foster. But
I sometimes think that, II All Terry
lad not suddenly been seized with the
dea to study the Crlmean war seven
'ears before our great war broke. he
would have remained I'M
Known to fame and would have rusted
,ut behind the desk of the clerk OF
,ur superior court"