Personal reminiscences of early days in California, with other sketches

by Stephen J. Field; George C. Gorham

CHAPTER X.

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND REFUSES TO PARDON TERRY—FALSE STATEMENTS OF TERRY REFUTED.

Before the petition for habeas corpus was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Terry's friends made a strenuous effort to secure his pardon from President Cleveland. The President declined to interfere. In his efforts in that direction Judge Terry made gross misrepresentations as to Judge Field's relations with himself, which were fully refuted by Judge Heydenfeldt, the very witness he had invoked. Judge Heydenfeldt had been an associate of Judge Terry on the State supreme bench. These representations and their refutation are here given as a necessary element in this narrative.

Five days after he had been imprisoned, to wit, September 8, Terry wrote a letter to his friend Zachariah Montgomery at Washington, then Assistant Attorney-General for the Interior Department under the Cleveland Administration, in which he asked his aid to obtain a pardon from the President. Knowing that it would be useless to ask this upon the record of his conduct as shown by the order for his commitment, he resorted to the desperate expedient of endeavoring to overcome that record by putting his own oath to a false statement of the facts, against the statement of the three judges, made on their own knowledge, as eye-witnesses, and supported by the affidavits of court officers, lawyers, and spectators.

To Montgomery he wrote:

"I have made a plain statement of the facts which occurred in the court, and upon that propose to ask the intervention of the President, and I request you to see the President; tell him all you know of me, and what degree of credit should be given to a statement by me upon my own knowledge of the facts. When you read the statement I have made you will be satisfied that the statement in the order of the court is false."

He then proceeded to tell his story as he told it in his petition to the Circuit Court. His false representations as to the assault he made upon the marshal, and as to his alleged provocation therefor, were puerile in the extreme. He stood alone in his declaration that the marshal first assaulted him, while the three judges and a dozen witnesses declared the very opposite. His denial that he had assaulted the marshal with a deadly weapon was contradicted by the judges and others, who said that they saw him attempt to draw a knife in the court-room, which attempt, followed up as it was continually until successful, constituted an assault with that weapon. To call his bowie-knife "a small sheath-knife," and the outrageous conduct of his wife "acts of indiscretion;" to pretend that he lost his temper because he was assaulted "while making an honest effort to peaceably and quietly enforce the order of the court," and finally to pretend that his wife had been "unnecessarily assaulted" in his presence, was all not only false, but simply absurd and ridiculous.

He said: "I don't want to stay in prison six months for an offense of which I am not guilty. There is no way left except to appeal to the President. The record of a court imports absolute verity, so I am not allowed to show that the record of the Circuit Court is absolutely false. If you can help me in this matter you will confer on me the greatest possible favor."

He told Montgomery that it had been suggested to him that one reason for Field's conduct was his refusal to support the latter's aspirations for the Presidency. In this connection he made the following statement:

"In March, 1884, I received a note from my friend Judge Heydenfeldt, saying that he wished to see me on important business, and asking me to call at his office. I did so, and he informed me that he had received a letter from Judge Field, who was confident that if he could get the vote of California in the Democratic National Convention, which would assemble that year, he would be nominated for President and would be elected as, with the influence of his family and their connection, that he would certainly carry New York; that Judge Field further said that a Congressman from California and other of his friends had said that if I would aid him, I could give him the California delegation; that he understood I wanted official recognition as, because of my duel years ago, I was under a cloud; that if I would aid him, I should have anything I desired."

It will be observed that he here positively states that Judge Heydenfeldt told him he had received a letter from Judge Field, asking Terry's aid and promising, for it, a reward. Judge Heydenfeldt, in a letter dated August 21, 1889, to the San Francisco Examiner, branded Terry's assertion as false. The letter to the Examiner is as follows:

"The statement made in to-day's Examiner in reference to the alleged letter from Justice Field to me, derived, as is stated by Mr. Ashe, from a conversation with Judge Terry, is utterly devoid of truth.

"I had at one time, many years ago, a letter from Justice Field, in which he stated that he was going to devote his leisure to preparing for circulation among his friends his reminiscences, and, referring to those of early California times, he requested me to obtain from Judge Terry his, Terry's, version of the Terry-Broderick duel, in order that his account of it might be accurate. As soon as I received this letter, I wrote to Judge Terry, informing him of Judge Field's wishes, and recommending him to comply, as coming, as the account would, from friendly hands, it would put him correct upon the record, and would be in a form which would endure as long as necessary for his reputation on that subject.

"I received no answer from Judge Terry, but meeting him, some weeks after, on the street in this city, he excused himself, saying that he had been very busy, and adding that it was unnecessary for him to furnish a version of the duel, as the published and accepted version was correct.

"The letter to me from Justice Field above referred to is the only letter from Justice Field to me in which Judge Terry's name was ever mentioned, and, with the exception of the above-mentioned street conversation, Judge Field was never the subject of conversation between Judge Terry and myself, from the time I left the bench, on the 1st of January, 1857, up to the time of Terry's death.

"As to the statement that during Terry's trouble with the Sharon case, I offered Terry the use of Field's letter, it results from what I have above stated—that it is a vile falsehood, whoever may be responsible for it.

"I had no such letter, and consequently could have made no
such offer.

"San Francisco, August 21, 1889.
"S. HEYDENFELDT."

Judge Heydenfeldt subsequently addressed the following letter to Judge
Field:

"SAN FRANCISCO, August 31, 1889.

"MY DEAR JUDGE: I received yours of yesterday with the extract from the Washington Post of the 22d inst., containing a copy of a letter from the late Judge Terry to the Hon. Zack Montgomery.

"The statement in that letter of a conversation between Terry and myself in reference to you is untrue. The only conversation Terry and I ever had in relation to you was, as heretofore stated, in regard to a request from you to me to get from Terry his version of the Terry-Broderick duel, to be used in your intended reminiscences.

"I do not see how Terry could have made such an erroneous statement, unless, possibly, he deemed that application as an advance made by you towards obtaining his political friendship, and upon that built up a theory, which he moulded into the fancy written by him in the Montgomery letter.

"In all of our correspondence, kept up from time to time since your first removal to Washington down to the present, no letter of yours contained a request to obtain the political support of any one.

"I remain, dear Judge, very truly yours,

"S. HEYDENFELDT.

"Hon. STEPHEN J. FIELD,
"Palace Hotel, San Francisco."

At the hearing of the Neagle case, Justice Field was asked if he had been informed of any statements made by Judge Terry of ill feeling existing between them before the latter's imprisonment for contempt. He replied:

"Yes, sir. Since that time I have seen a letter purporting to come from Terry to Zack Montgomery, published in Washington, in which he ascribed my action to personal hostility, because he had not supported me in some political aspiration. There is not one particle of truth in that statement. It is a pure invention. In support of his statement he referred to a letter received or an interview had with Judge Heydenfeldt. There is not the slightest foundation for it, and I cannot understand it, except that the man seems to me to have been all changed in the last few years, and he did not hesitate to assert that the official actions of others were governed by improper considerations. I saw charges made by him against judges of the State courts; that they had been corrupt in their decisions against him; that they had been bought. That was the common assertion made by him when decisions were rendered against him."

He then referred to the above letters of Judge Heydenfeldt, declaring
Terry's assertion to be false.

It should be borne in mind that Terry's letter to Montgomery was written September 8th. It directly contradicts what he had said to ex-Congressman Wigginton on the 5th or 6th of the same month. To that gentleman he declared that he knew of no "old grudge or little difference" between himself and Judge Field. He said he had declined to support the latter for the Presidency, and added: "That may have caused some alienation, but I do not know that Judge Field knew that."

In his insane rage Terry did not realize how absurd it was to expect people to believe that Judge Sawyer and Judge Sabin, both Republicans, had participated in putting him in jail, to punish him for not having supported Justice Field for the Presidency in a National Democratic Convention years before.

Perhaps Terry thought his reference to the fact that Judge Field's name had been previously used in Democratic Conventions, in connection with the Presidency, might have some effect upon President Cleveland's mind.

This letter was not forwarded to Zachariah Montgomery until a week after it was written. He then stated in a postscript that he had delayed sending it upon the advice of his attorneys pending the application to the Circuit Court for his release. Again he charged that the judges had made a false record against him, and that evidence would be presented to the President to show it.

Terry and his friends brought all the pressure to bear that they could command, but the President refused his petition for a pardon, and, as already shown, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that his imprisonment for contempt had been lawfully ordered. He was therefore obliged to serve out his time.

Mrs. Terry served her thirty days in jail, and was released on the 3d of October.

There is a federal statute that provides for the reduction of a term of imprisonment of criminals for good behavior. Judge Terry sought to have this statute applied in his case, but without success. The Circuit Court held that the law relates to state penitentiaries, and not to jails, and that the system of credits could not be applied to prisoners in jail. Besides this, the credits in any case are counted by the year, and not by days or months. The law specifies that prisoners in state prisons are entitled to so many months' time for the first year, and so many for each subsequent year. As Terry's sentence ran for six months, the court said the law could not apply. He consequently remained in jail until the 3d of March, 1889.