With Alabama's
secession, Fry enlisted in the Confederate army and was appointed Colonel of the 13th Alabama Infantry. The regiment was transported
to Virginia and fought in the Peninsula Campaign. Colonel
Fry was wounded in action at the Battle of Seven Pines. He recovered in time to command his regiment in the savage fighting
at Antietam, where he was again wounded, suffering a shattered arm.
Fry rejoined his regiment
and led it during the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, where he suffered a third wound. During the subsequent Gettysburg Campaign,
Fry's regiment was among the first Confederate units to deploy into a line of battle and engage the Union cavalry of John
Buford on July 1, 1863. His men suffered considerable casualties and were repulsed at McPherson's Ridge by the arrival of the Federal Iron Brigade. With the capture of Brig. Gen. James J. Archer, Fry assumed command of Archer's Brigade of Tennesseans and Alabamans. Held
in reserve on July 2, Fry's brigade was a key part of the July 3 attack that became famous as Pickett's Charge. He suffered yet another wound, and fell near the Union lines. Held as a prisoner of war at Fort
McHenry in Baltimore,
Fry was treated in a local field hospital.
There, rumors circulated that
Fry had been involved in the August 1862 murder of Union General Robert L. McCook in Alabama.
Fry's West Point classmate, John Gibbon, who ironically commanded the troops that had shot Fry at Gettysburg,
vouched for his character and the rumor was silenced.
Exchanged in 1864, Fry rejoined
the Army of Northern Virginia in time for the beginning of the Siege of Petersburg.
During Philip H. Sheridan's raid on Richmond in early May, Fry was assigned command of Seth
Barton's Virginia brigade, leading it during the Battle
of Meadow Bridge. He was promoted to brigadier general on May 24, 1864.
During the final months of the
war, Fry was placed in command of a military district in South Carolina and Georgia.
After
surrendering in Augusta, Fry emigrated to Cuba, lodging in Havana hotels with several former prominent Confederates,
including Jubal A. Early, John C. Breckinridge, Robert A. Toombs, and John B. Magruder. He returned to the United States
in 1868 and resided in Tallassee, Alabama,* as a businessman. Fry later expanded his business career in Florida, and,
in 1881, moved to Richmond, Virginia, where he was president of a cotton mill for a decade.
Fry died in Richmond and was buried
in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama.
*Fry resided at No. 1, King Street,
in a house built for Confederate Officers in charge of the Tallassee Armory. His home has been renovated and is currently
occupied as a law office.
Sources: Virginia Military Institute;
Hess, Earl J., Pickett's Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001; Pérez, Louis
A., Jr., Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003; Warner, Ezra J.,
Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959; Golden, Virginia
Noble, A History of Tallassee, Tallassee Mills of Mount Vernon-Woodberry Mills, 1949.
