General Alfred Howe Terry

1827 - 1890

BiographyAlfred Howe Terry was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on 10 November 1827. He was awarded an honorary M.A. at Yale in 1865. He practiced law and later served in the Civil War. His first action was as Colonel of the 2nd Connecticut Volunteers at the First Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861. He received his commission as a brigadier general in April 1862, and commanded troops at Hilton Head, Pocotaligo, Battery Wagner, and Morris Island, South Carolina. He was awarded the Thanks of Congress for generalship during the final capture by storm of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on 15 January 1865. Later that month, Terry was breveted a major general of volunteers and, at the same time, received a brigadier general's commission in the United States Regular Army, all the more remarkable because he had seen no prior service in that body. In this latter capacity, General Terry served on the western frontier, as the superior officer of George Armstrong Custer at the time of the Battle of Little Big Horn. General Alfred Howe Terry died in New Haven, Connecticut, on 16 December 1890.

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