Orris Sanford Ferry was born on August 15, 1823, in Bethel, Connecticut. He attended the Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut, and he enrolled at Yale College around 1840. He graduated four years later and settled in Norwalk, Connecticut. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and he served as a lieutenant colonel in the state militia. He married Charlotte Bissell, and their daughter Mary was born around 1849.

 

He worked as a lawyer and a probate judge. He was elected to the Connecticut state senate in the 1850s. He joined the Republican Party around 1856, and he campaigned for presidential candidate John C. Frémont. He served in Congress from 1859 until 1861. During the secession crisis, he served on the Committee of Thirty-Three, which sought to craft a compromise that could hold the country together.

 

In July 1861, he received a commission as colonel of the 5^th Connecticut Infantry. He was promoted to brigadier general in March 1862. He served as head of the District of Philadelphia from December 1864 until July 1865, and he resigned on July 15, 1865.

 

He returned to Connecticut after the war, and he served in the United States Senate from 1867 until 1875. He favored amnesty for former Confederates, and he sympathized with the Liberal Republican movement in the early 1870s. He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He suffered from a degenerating spinal disease, and he died in Norwalk on November 21, 1875.

 

Image: Orris S. Ferry (courtesy Wikicommons)

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