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Confederate (CSA)

Lieutenant Colonel

John F Terry

(1828 - 1890)

Home State: Virginia

Command Billet: Commanding Regiment

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 37th Virginia Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

From Bristol, VA, he enlisted in Goodson as Private in the "Goodson Rifle Guards" and was elected Captain about April. They became Company A, 37th Virginia Infantry in May 1861. He was wounded in both legs in action in the Valley on 8 May 1862 at McDowell, VA. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 27 June 1862 after Colonel Fulkerson had been mortally wounded at Gaines Mill, VA.

On the Campaign

He commanded the Regiment at Sharpsburg, and was severely wounded in the wrist in action there on 17 September.

The rest of the War

He was with the Regiment to at least January 1865 (then at Post Headquarters, Bristol, TN), but was not among the 17 men (all enlisted) of the 37th Virginia paroled at Appomattox Courthouse, VA on 9 April 1865.

After the War

He was elected Commissioner of the Revenue for Washington County, VA in August 1865, but declared ineligible because of his Confederate commission. He was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1869, but was not seated - for the same reason. He was mayor of Goodson, VA (renamed Bristol in 1890) from 1875-1886. Sometime after 1876 he was Treasurer of the new Bristol Coal and Iron Narrow Guarge Railway.

References & notes

Personal information from Lewis Preston Summers' History of Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 (1903). His Sharpsburg wound detail from a casualty list in the Abingdon Virginian of 3 October 1862 online from the Library of Congress. His gravesite is on Findagrave. He was said to have "dropped dead on Main Street" in Bristol.

Birth

1828; Amherst County, VA

Death

11/17/1890; Bristol, VA; burial in East End Cemetery, Wytheville, VA