Herman H. Perry was born on April 13, 1835, in Georgia to Hardy Perry and Mary Fryer. His parents probably both died before 1850, and he grew up in his brother Oliver’s household in Burke County, Georgia. Perry attended school there before enrolling at the University of Virginia in 1854. The faculty frequently admonished him for “doing nothing.” He remained at UVA until at least 1856 before returning to Georgia and beginning work as a lawyer.

 

Perry enlisted in the Confederate army and mustered in as a sergeant in the 2^nd Georgia Infantry. He was eventually promoted to captain and served as an assistant adjutant general. Perry returned to Burke County after the war and resumed his legal practice. He married Charlotte E. Carter in 1868, and they had at least three children: Angeline, born around 1868; and John, born around 1871.

 

Perry vehemently opposed Reconstruction; as one writer later noted, he “continued to fight for the rehabilitation” of the South. He served in the state’s constitutional convention in 1877 and sat in the state senate from 1878 to 1879. He became a judge in Burke County soon afterward and served until 1902. He also worked as an editor for the True Citizen newspaper. He died in Jenkins County, Georgia, on February 14, 1908.

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