“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.