And also that of Mr. Baggett, one of Terry’s counsel, who said: 

“I have had frequent conversations with Terry about Field, and he has often told me that Field has used his court and his power as a judge to humiliate him, and that he intended to humiliate him in return to the extent of his power.  ’I will slap his face,’ said Terry to me, ’if I run across him, but I shall not put myself out of the way to meet him.  I do not intend to kill him, but I will insult him by slapping his face, knowing that he will not resent it.’”

What knightly courage was here.  If ever a new edition of the dueling code is printed, it should have for a frontispiece a cut representing the stalwart Terry dealing stealthy blows from behind upon a justice of the United States Supreme Court, 72 years of age, after having previously informed a trusted friend that he believed himself safe from any resistance by the object of his attack.  It may be here also said that Justice Field, as was well known to every one, had for many years suffered from great lameness in consequence of an injury received by him in early life, and with difficulty could walk without assistance.

Mr. Montgomery, with freezing candor, informs the Supreme Court that, in strict accordance with the chivalrous code of honor, Judge Terry administered blows upon a member of that court, to force him into a duel, because of a judicial act with which he was displeased.

He says: 

“The most conclusive proof that Terry had no intention, for the time being, of seriously hurting Field, but that his sole purpose was to tender him an insult, is found in the fact that he only used his open hand, and that, too, in a mild manner.”

We often hear of the “mild-mannered men” who “scuttle ships” and “cut throats,” but this is the very first one whose “very mild manner” of beating a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States with his hand was ever certified to by an attorney and counsellor of that court in the argument of a case before it.

It would be difficult to conceive of anything more puerile or absurd than this pretense that Terry had the slightest expectation of provoking a man of Justice Field’s age, official position, and physical condition, to fight a duel with him in vindication of the right of the court over which he presided to imprison a man for contempt for beating the marshal in the face with his fist, and afterwards pursuing him with a knife, in the presence of the court, for obeying an order of the court.

Mr. Montgomery appears to have been imported into the case mainly for the purpose of reviewing the facts and giving them the Terry stamp.  His ambition seems to have been to insult Justice Field and his associates in the Circuit Court by charging them with misrepresenting the facts of the occurrence, thus repeating Terry’s reckless accusations to that effect.  For Terry he had only words of eulogy and admiration, and said he was “straightforward, candid, and incapable of concealment or treachery himself, and therefore never suspected treachery, even in an enemy.”