In view of what was so soon to occur, it is important to understand the condition of mind into which Judge Terry and his wife had now wrought themselves. They had been married about two years and a half. In their desperate struggle for a share of a rich man's estate they had made themselves the terror of the community. Armed at all times and ready for mortal combat with whoever opposed their claims, they seemed, up to the 17th of July, to have won their way in the State courts by intimidation. The decision of the United States Circuit Court was rendered before they were married. It proclaimed the pretended marriage agreement a forgery, and ordered it to be delivered to the clerk of the court for cancellation. Terry's marriage with Sarah Althea, twelve days after this, was a declaration of intention to resist its authority. The conduct of the pair in the Circuit Court on the 3d of September must have had some object. They may have thought to break up the session of the court for that day, and to so intimidate the judges that they would not carry out their purpose of rendering the decision; or they may have hoped that, if rendered, it would be allowed to slumber without any attempt to enforce it; or even that a rehearing might be granted, and a favorable decision forced from the court. It takes a brave man on the bench to stand firmly for his convictions in the face of such tactics as were adopted by the Terrys. The scene was expected also to have its effect upon the minds of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State, who then were yet to pass finally upon Sullivan's judgment on the appeal from the order denying a new trial. But the Terrys had not looked sufficiently at the possible consequence of their actions. They had thus far gone unresisted. As District Attorney Carey wrote to the Attorney-General: "They were unable to appreciate that an officer should perform his official duty when that duty in any way requires that his efforts be directed against them." When, therefore, Justice Field directed the removal of Mrs. Terry from the court, and when her doughty defendant and champion, confident of being able to defeat the order, found himself vanquished in the encounter, disarmed, arrested, and finally imprisoned, his rage was boundless. He had found a tribunal which cared nothing for his threats, and was able to overcome his violence. A court that would put him in the Alameda jail for six months for resisting its order would enforce all its decrees with equal certainty. From the time of the Terrys' incarceration in the Alameda county jail their threats against Justice Field became a matter of such notoriety that the drift of discussion was not so much whether they would murder the Justice, as to when and under what circumstances they would be likely to do so.