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In 1883, he was made commander-in-chief of the
army. Like
General Sherman, he believed that military control of the reservations
was essential, and that
Indians
should be punished for misdeeds. He is remembered for saying, "The
only good
Indian
is a dead
Indian."
In 1883, he was made commander-in-chief of the
army. He died on August 5, 1888 of heart disease.
 General
Alfred Terry (1827-1890) -
Born in 1827 in Hartford, Connecticut to a
prosperous family, they soon moved to New Haven, where Terry grew up.
Having a good education he became a lawyer and was appointed as the clerk
of the Superior Court of New Haven County in the 1850s.
At the outbreak of the
Civil War, Terry raised a regiment of
Connecticut volunteers and led them into battle at First Bull Run,
as well as other engagements in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. His success on the battlefield earned him a promotion to brigadier general
during the war.
In
1866,
Terry became military commander of the Department of Dakota and would
play an important role in the army's long and often ruthless campaign
against the Indians to gain control of the northern plains. In 1867,
he served as a member of the peace commission that finally ended Red
Cloud's attacks by negotiating the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.
Terry's legal training and judicial experience would lead to his
selection for many similar commissions throughout his career.
The next year,
Terry left the Dakotas for a post in Georgia, where he was a commander
in the reconstruction activities and strong opponent of the emerging Ku
Klux Klan. By 1872, however, he returned to command of the forces in
Dakota Territory, providing military protection for the Hayden survey of
the
Yellowstone region and a survey of the Canadian border.
Terry became
George Armstrong Custer's commanding officer in 1873, when the Seventh
Cavalry was posted to the Dakotas, and the following year he found himself
caught up in controversy when
Custer's well-publicized expedition into the
Black Hills
triggered a gold rush onto land that had been set aside for the
Lakota
under the Fort Laramie Treaty,
Terry himself had helped negotiate.
Terry now became a member of the Allison Committee, which attempted to
purchase the
Black Hills from the
Lakota
in 1875, and following the committee's failure, he directed the 1876
campaign to force the
Lakota
and their allies onto reservations.
Despite his unhappiness over
Custer's adventure in the
Black Hills,
Terry interceded on
Custer's behalf when his complaints about
Indian
Bureau activities in the Dakotas provoked a political controversy that
nearly cost him the command of the Seventh Cavalry.
After the massacre at the
Little
Bighorn,
Terry accepted unmerited criticism rather than tarnish
Custer's reputation. He ordered the court-marshal of Major
Marcus Reno,
Custer's second-in-command.
Terry never fought again, serving on numerous army
Indian
commissions and commanding the Department of the
Missouri.
In
1886, Terry was promoted to major general and appointed commander of the
Army's Great Plains forces. However, when he became seriously ill in
188, he retired from the army and died two years later.
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