While at breakfast in a San Francisco hotel, Broderick read an address Terry had delivered in Sacramento. Angered by something Terry had said, he remarked to a friend, "I have said that I considered him the only honest man on the supreme bench, but now I take it all back." A Mr. Perley, an English subject, asked Broderick if he meant Terry. Being answered "yes" he at once resented the reflection on Terry. Broderick cut him short with some curt remark, whereupon Perley challenged Broderick, but the latter declined because of the political canvass then in progress. On September 7, 1859, Broderick's party was overwhelmingly defeated, and he emerged from the contest dispirited and in ill health. As soon as Terry knew the result of the election, he tendered his resignation as chief justice and sent Broderick a note by his friend Benham, demanding a retraction of the remarks overheard by Perley. Admitting the words, Broderick observed Terry was "the best judge as to whether this language affords good grounds for offense." Terry sent a formal challenge by Benham, which Broderick accepted, and on September 13th they met. Terry had passed a comfortable night, but Broderick's friends had taken him to a house where he got little rest, and he came on the field unrefreshed and without even a cup of coffee. The pistols had very delicate hair triggers, and Terry had practiced with them. They were strange to Broderick, and he had difficulty in handling them. When, according to the custom, the seconds searched both, McKibben, Broderick's second, merely touched Terry's vest. But Benham manipulated his hands up and down Broderick's person as though he thought to discover a coat of mail. This annoyed Broderick at a time when he needed to be calm. When word was given, Broderick fired and missed. Then Terry took deliberate aim and Broderick fell, fatally wounded. The day of Broderick's funeral public sentiment changed suddenly in the late senator's favor, and against Terry. He lost standing in his party, and although a great lawyer and a universally popular man, became something of an outcast in California. He was indicted, but the case was transferred to another court and dismissed. His end was violent. He had harbored resentment against Stephen J. Field, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, for a certain decision unfavorable to Terry's wife, widely known as Sarah Althea Hill, and also because he had not hesitated to send both Terry and his wife to jail for resisting and assaulting a United States marshal in open court. Field's friends were informed that Terry threatened violence, and when Field returned to California after Terry's release from jail he was accompanied by a deputy marshal as body guard. Terry sought Field, entered a restaurant where Field was seated, walked directly back of him and struck the venerable justice in the face. Nagle, the body guard, shot Terry, who died instantly.