The Commanders

by Robert M. Utley

  Thus General Ulysses S. Grant evaluated Alfred H. Terry. With his usual insight and verbal skill, Grant touched on the essence of Terry: civilian soldier, promoted without political influence, successful in the battle, with a Regular Army brigadier general’s commission as a reward, friendly, thoughtful, kind, and generous to his subordinates, and a skilled tactician.

  Tall, slender, and full-bearded, Terry had a fine mind and struck people as kind, calm, steady, friendly, and honest. As a military commander, he maintained strict discipline tempered by concern for the well-being of his men. In turn, he earned their loyalty, respect, gratitude, and eventually veneration. He contented himself with doing his duty without ostentation or self-seeking—a modest demeanor that sometimes allowed others to receive credit that should have been his. His career demonstrated that a West Point education was not essential to attaining high rank.

  Alfred Howe Terry was born on November 10, 1827, in Hartford, Connecticut, but moved with his growing family to New Haven four years later. He attended Yale University Law School for two years, 1848–49, before withdrawing after being admitted to the bar. While striving to build a law practice, he served as city clerk and then clerk of the state Superior Court.

  Attracted from an early age by military affairs, Terry joined the local militia, the New Haven Grays, in 1849, soon after leaving law school. He played an active role in the unit while reading deeply of military history and science. He resigned in 1856 after the governor appointed him a major in the Second Connecticut Volunteer regiment. In 1860 Terry embarked on a European tour, in which he further strengthened his military knowledge by visiting battlefields and museums. He returned early in 1861 to find his military talents in demand.2

  CIVIL WAR

  With the South firing on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for three-month volunteers. Connecticut mobilized three such regiments. On May 9, 1861, the governor conferred on Terry the rank of colonel of the Second Connecticut Volunteers. With his self-taught military background, Terry organized, drilled, and quickly gained the respect of his regiment. June 3 found them camped near Vienna, Virginia, where they remained on picket duty until July 16, when they took up the march toward Manassas. The First and Second Connecticut led the advance of Brigadier General Daniel T. Tyler’s division, part of Brigadier General Irvin McDowell’s hastily assembled army. On July 17, just beyond Vienna, the head of the column encountered Confederate skirmishers. Burdened with an incompetent commander, Terry and his men plunged into the Battle of Bull Run.

  Even before the main battle began on July 21, Tyler rashly ignored orders and led his division into a Confederate trap. Fortunately for the Connecticut regiments, they had been replaced in the advance and escaped the artillery fire sweeping the ranks from both flanks. Even worse, on July 21 Tyler’s tardiness in carrying out his assignment disordered General McDowell’s plan of attack. In the ensuing battle Terry led the Second Connecticut in three assaults on the Confederate lines but was forced back each time by deadly fire. Had General Tyler disposed his forces differently, the Confederate defenses probably would have been taken, but the Battle of Bull Run had already been lost. The Union forces were ordered to retreat. Unlike the panicked flight of most of the army, the Connecticut regiments stood their ground and in one instance turned and shattered a Confederate cavalry charge. They were the last units to leave the battlefield.

  Colonel Terry’s handling of his regiment at Bull Run drew widespread praise from his superiors, including even General Tyler, and from other ranking officers. He had put his years of preparation to the test and emerged a competent combat commander.

  Less than three weeks after Bull Run, the Second Connecticut was mustered out in New Haven. A month later, on September 13, Colonel Terry began organizing and training the Seventh Connecticut, a regiment enlisted for three years or the duration of the war. He shaped it into a well-trained, well-led, highly disciplined body of infantrymen who would serve him loyally even after he ascended above the grade of colonel. Both Terry and the regiment would pass the rest of the war largely operating in tandem with the navy against the Confederacy’s South Atlantic coastal defenses, which for most of the time were commanded by General P. G. T. Beauregard.

  Port Royal, South Carolina, was the first objective. It gave access to Beaufort, North Carolina, which lay between Charleston and Savannah and was connected by railroad to both cities. The large guns of two forts, Walker and Beauregard, commanded the entrance to the harbor from islands on either side. The campaign fell under command of Flag Officer Samuel Du Pont and was almost entirely a naval operation. A division of infantry under Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman lay in transports offshore ready to support the navy. Terry’s Seventh Connecticut was part of one of Sherman’s three brigades.

  On November 7, 1861, Du Pont launched his armada: a column of nine gunboats and another of five gunboats. They were to move in an elliptical formation, bringing both forts under continuous fire as they circled. For five hours the gunboats battered the two forts, sustaining little damage in the process. Running low on powder, the Confederate commanders abandoned Forts Walker and Beauregard. Small boats bore Sherman’s soldiers from the transports to the shore below the two forts. Terry and the Seventh Connecticut waded ashore in advance of the troops assigned to occupy Fort Walker.

  Port Royal provided a staging area for the next operation: an offensive to close the port of Savannah, Georgia, to Confederate blockade-runners. Fort Pulaski, a formidable prewar brick fortification, commanded the mouth of the Savannah River. The plan for taking the fort was devised by General Sherman’s chief engineer, Captain (soon to be General) Quincy Gillmore. He believed that the newly invented rifled cannon and mortars alone could bombard the fort into submission. Batteries would be planted on Tybee Island, across the river from the fort on the south, and Jones and other islands on the north shore. To Colonel Terry’s Seventh Connecticut fell the task of preparing the swampy areas on Tybee Island where the batteries would be placed. This labor—building roads, hauling stores, and preparing bomb-proof emplacements for the artillery—had to be carried out silently at night to conceal it from the notice of the fort. The effort continued through January and February 1862, but the hardest work took place in March and April, after the heavy ordnance arrived and the men had to snake the cannon and mortars through mud and water and build bomb-proof platforms for mounting them.

  By April 10, when the bombardment began, acerbic General Sherman had been replaced by Major General David Hunter. For two days Hunter’s big guns pounded the fort, gradually breaking down the walls and finally imperiling the powder magazine. Early in the afternoon of April 11 the Confederate commander surrendered the wrecked Fort Pulaski.

  Although the Gillmore plan had its skeptics—including the disliked General Sherman—the siege had proved Gillmore right: rifled cannon could prevail over a heavily defended fort without the need for an infantry assault.

  Fort Pulaski remained in Union hands for the rest of the war, but Savannah itself did not fall to the Union until December 1864, when General William T. Sherman completed his march from Atlanta to the sea. Even so, the Union blockade and the guns of Fort Pulaski denied the port to Confederate shipping.

  Three weeks after the fall of Fort Pulaski, on April 26, 1862, the Senate confirmed the promotion of Alfred H. Terry to brigadier general of Volunteers. The promotion rewarded merit that his superiors had long recognized. As summarized by Terry’s biographer: “Coolness and bravery under fire, care and consideration for the well-being of his fellow soldiers, skill in organizing and directing the activities of his men, dependability under all conditions, and the willingness to sacrifice himself for the general good: these are the key themes of Terry’s early military career.”3

  After Terry’s promotion, he was placed in command of an area along the coast from Beaufort north to the islands marking the approach to Charleston Harbor, with his headquarters on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Charleston was the next major op
eration after Fort Pulaski, but in June 1862 costly battles on James Island and at Simon’s Bluff stalled the Union advance. Terry’s administrative burdens, including a long inspection tour of Florida and court-martial duty, freed him from the mishandled combat operations of summer 1862.

  Terry’s first combat as a brigadier came in October 1862, when he commanded a brigade in an effort to destroy railroad works near the village of Pocotaligo, South Carolina. Carried from Hilton Head by naval vessels, two brigades landed and advanced on the objective. Severe fighting took place, but the Union forces failed to overcome the Confederate opposition. Terry handled his regiments well both in combat and in the retreat to the ships to return to Hilton Head.

  Terry took a long leave of absence, then returned to Hilton Head to participate in the planning for an offensive against Charleston. Plans and concentration of troops and naval vessels extended into the spring of 1863. Admiral Samuel Du Pont led the first assault on the forts that guarded Charleston Harbor, but his ironclads failed to do much damage. The second effort involved both the navy (now under Admiral John A. Dahlgren) and the army (under Major General Quincy Gillmore).

  Union forces faced formidable obstacles. The heavy cannon of the Confederate forts swept all the harbor approaches. The main Union objectives were Fort Wagner on Morris Island and Fort Sumter on the northwestern tip of James Island. In this offensive General Gillmore gave Terry command of a full division. Beginning in April 1863, Terry’s regiments labored to erect gun emplacements on Folly Island, opposite Morris Island, to support troops when they landed on the island. By July Gillmore was ready to move.

  While a brigade went ashore on Morris Island, Gillmore ordered Terry to move his division up the Stono River to a landing on James Island, where he was to distract the enemy and prevent reinforcements from reaching Fort Wagner. On July 8 Terry’s division went ashore, to find a Confederate force drawn up to oppose him. He forbore to attack, however, because he was already accomplishing his mission by tying down potential reinforcements. On July 16 the Rebels launched a vigorous attack on Terry at Grimball’s Landing. Marshy ground disorganized the assault, and Terry’s artillery halted them before they came into musket range. Ordered by Gillmore to abandon James Island and come to Morris Island, Terry moved his division down the Stono River.

  In Terry’s absence, Gillmore, supported by the artillery on Folly Island, landed a brigade of his second division on Morris Island on July 10. Commanded by Brigadier General George C. Strong, the brigade encountered fierce resistance but continued the advance and on July 11 assaulted Fort Wagner. Met by heavy cannon and musketry fire, the brigade faltered. Terry’s old regiment, the Seventh Connecticut, seized a line of rifle pits, but the brigade was repulsed.

  Before Terry’s division reached the field of action, Gillmore threw three brigades against Fort Wagner on July 18. After a day-long bombardment, the brigades advanced at dusk. Under heavy fire, several regiments reached the slopes of the bastion and one regiment, the fabled black Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, surmounted the parapet. Nightfall and stubborn defenders ended the second Battle of Fort Wagner.

  Arriving with fresh troops, Terry discovered the Union troops reeling from the chaos of the battle, the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts having sustained 45 percent casualties. Gillmore placed Terry in command of Morris Island and, instead of mounting another bloody assault, began digging siege lines. As the lines angled forward, Terry and Gillmore arranged heavy artillery for barrages against both Fort Wagner and Fort Sumter, across the inlet. While the bombardment of Fort Wagner continued, Terry and Gillmore worked heavy artillery into position to bring Fort Sumter under fire. On August 17 the big guns erupted, and by August 23 the fort was a pile of rubble. Under occasional fire, however, Confederates remained in the ruins until the end of the war.

  With Fort Sumter disintegrating, Gillmore increased the pressure on Fort Wagner with continuous heavy bombardment from both land and sea even as Terry’s men worked on the siege trenches. On September 6 Gillmore ordered Terry to prepare a full-bore assault on the fort with his division. Before he could signal the advance on September 7, a Confederate deserter brought word that the fort had been evacuated. Terry occupied Fort Wagner and other Confederate strong points.

  The seizure of Charleston’s harbor defenses had been costly and fatiguing but had succeeded. Charleston lay open to a direct assault. Bickering between army and navy, however, stalled further efforts, and the offensive ended in a stalemate. Charleston did not fall to the Union until February 1865.

  The offensive against Charleston offered General Terry no opportunities for battlefield distinction. In all his division’s missions, however, he performed efficiently and effectively and made no mistake that would have invited censure.

  Terry and his division occupied Morris Island until the spring of 1864, cleaning the island of the debris left by months of bloody conflict. It was boring, tiring work, made more difficult by the sandy character of the terrain. In late October and early November Terry enjoyed a three-week respite in New Haven. In April 1864 orders arrived transferring Terry and his division north, to the command of Major General Benjamin Butler in Virginia.

  Two corps formed Butler’s Army of the James, one under Quincy Gillmore, the other under Major General William F. “Baldy” Smith. Terry’s division remained under Gillmore’s command. Butler’s army was to operate against Richmond from the southeast while Grant, with the Army of the Potomac, plunged into the Wilderness and aimed at Richmond from the northwest. In early May 1864, as Grant began to battle Confederates in the Wilderness, the Army of the James steamed up the James River to the village of Bermuda Hundred, at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers. Here the army debarked on May 5 and set about digging entrenchments and positioning artillery.

  On May 9 both corps advanced into the peninsula between the two rivers. Terry’s division set about tearing up the Richmond and Petersburg Railway, clearing a line of Confederate entrenchments in the process. The next day, while destroying the railway, firing from the north alerted Terry that his rear guard of three regiments was under fire. He marched rapidly to the rescue, arriving in time to save the regiments. In a furious three-hour fight, his force of 3,250 infantrymen and an artillery battery beat off three determined charges by a Southern force with twice their number. Sustaining heavy casualties, the attackers withdrew from the field.

  On May 12, from the Union entrenchments, both Gillmore and Smith advanced their corps north toward Richmond. At Drewry’s Bluff they faced General Beauregard’s heavily manned entrenchments. The ensuing battle swirled around the defenses, with Union forces seeking to penetrate and flank the lines. Terry’s division held firm as other elements began to fall back. Still, only confusion among Beauregard’s commanders saved the Army of the James from destruction. With 4,500 casualties, the Union corps fell back to Bermuda Hundred.

  After the failed move against Beauregard, the Army of the James settled into its entrenchments. Even before the Bermuda Hundred campaign, Butler and his generals had carried on a rancorous feud. Butler, Gillmore, and Smith detested one another. In part, Drewry’s Bluff had failed because of the faults and controversies of the three generals. In the months following the battle Butler found cause to relieve both Gillmore and Smith, but Terry remained loyal under Butler’s command. Under a reorganization directed by General Grant, the Army of the James consisted of the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Corps, one white, the other black. Major General Edward O. C. Ord took command of the Twenty-Fourth, which included Terry’s division.

  Butler’s next mission, in December 1864, was Fort Fisher, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, which gave blockade-runners access to Wilmington, North Carolina. A massive fortification constantly improved and enlarged for the past four years, Fort Fisher was known as the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy.” It was the South’s last major coastal bastion.

  The campaign against Fort Fisher was again a combined army-navy expedition. Rear Admiral David D. Port
er commanded sixty gunships and a fleet of transports to carry the infantry. Grant assigned Major General Godfrey Weitzel to lead the expedition, but General Butler dominated Weitzel, without the knowledge of Grant, who thought Butler went merely as an observer. These troops constituted only part of the Army of the James. Terry and his division were not included.

  The first Battle of Fort Fisher took place on December 24, 1864. Naval bombardment failed to neutralize the fort’s batteries, and the infantry attack encountered such strong resistance that Butler concluded that the fort could not be taken. He called off the expedition and returned to Bermuda Hundred. In response, Grant relieved Butler and replaced him with General Ord.

  An incensed Admiral Porter wrote to General Grant: “Send me the same soldiers with another general, and we will have the fort.”4 Grant selected another general: Alfred Terry. He was assigned selected elements of three divisions in a “Provisional Corps” of nine thousand infantry. On January 6, 1865, Terry’s expedition embarked from Bermuda Hundred to join Admiral Porter’s squadron of more than fifty vessels in another assault on Fort Fisher.

  Cooperating closely with Porter, Terry landed his entire force on the river side of the peninsula on January 13 and went into camp, without taking any fire from the fort. On January 15, following a naval bombardment that ravaged the fort’s guns, Porter landed two thousand sailors and marines on the opposite (ocean) side of the peninsula, while Terry launched his infantry from the other side. For five hours the battle raged, with attacks and counterattacks and heavy casualties on both sides. The fight continued into the night, with naval guns still active even as the infantry swarmed into the fort’s interior. Terry scaled the parapet and took personal command as the two sides struggled. Bursts of musketry felled men by the dozen. By 10:00 P.M. Fort Fisher had been taken. But the senior Confederate officer, General W. H. C. Whiting, and other top officers had taken refuge in a small shore-side redoubt named Battery Buchanan. Terry led a brigade to attack the fort, but before they opened fire a white flag appeared. It was Terry who received General Whiting’s surrender.