The Georgia Weekly Telegraph
13 April 1875

From the Sunny South,
MAJOR PHILEMON TRACY

His War Record, and a Brief Sketch of his Life and Death.

BY RICHARD H. CLARKE

If a stranger, happening in the city of Baluvia, State of New York, were
to take a stroll in the public cemetery, he might read upon a beautiful
but plain marble slab, the name, Philemon Tracy, with nothing additional
but his age and the time of his death. It would not excite his curiosity
or any other emotion to note that the time was the seventeenth of
September, 1862. Men have died, men may die, as well on any other day in
the year; indeed, it is a month, when death has his harvest, if the grim
monster, who has "all seasons" for his havoc, can be said to have a
harvest time -- truly, he has no seed time, unless birth and death are one.

If a Georgian were to take the same walk and find the same inscription, he
would be struck with amazement, perhaps with horror. He would say to
himself: This cannot be the last resting place of the Phil. Tracy I knew,
for he was killed at Sharpsburg and buried on the battle field. If his
remains had ever been taken away, they would have been taken to the lovely
Rose Hill cemetery, Macon, Georgia, and would be beside those of his
brother Ed., embosomed in their native soil. The Georgian would then
surmise that the slab must mark the grave of another man of the same
name. But, then, there is that coincidence in date of death -- that
seventeenth of September, 1862 -- Sharpsburg's bloody day; the
significance of that cannot be reasoned away. But if the sleeper
was slain at Sharpsburg (as we have it, or Antietam, as the Federals have
it), why not say so? Truly, death in battle is the noblest of all deaths;
and if this is not put on the soldier's tomb, the dead is robbed by the
living of his laurels. The solution then becomes easy. Tracy is a
Northern name; the battle date is only a coincidence; here lies a man of
the same name who died on the same day, but he is a different man, and
died the death of nature.

But, stranger or Georgian, whoever you may be, your conclusion is wrong.
It is the grave of Phil. Tracy, of Macon, Georgia, who was killed at the
battle of Sharpsburg; and, reader, I will make the necessary explanation.

After the successful repulse of McClellan, General Lee, with his wasted
and wearied army, had to cross the Potomac with all possible celerity.
This left the enemy in possession of the field and our dead, and the only
access thereto for a long time was from the Federal side. Phil. Tracy had
a kind uncle residing at Batavia, New York, who, hearing of his sad fate,
dispatched a trusty messenger in search of his remains. That messenger
was successful in finding them, where they had been interred with other
officer-comrades. He knew Phil. well, and the identification was free
from any doubt from a mark, which will be made to appear in the sequel.
The whole country from there to Washington and Baltimore swarmed the
Federal troops. The animosity engendered by war was then in, full
fruition, and it was not only certain that the body of a rebel would not
be permitted by the soldiers to be taken North but the life of the
messenger would be endangered. Everything for transportation was
prearranged with as much caution and secrecy as possible, and when the
preparations were all made, the body was passed through the lines as that
of a Federal officer who had fallen in the late bloody battle. In this
guise they were escorted to Batavia and so buried -- not, however,
(notwithstanding the delicacy and difficulty of the task),
without "Christian burial," for the service of the English church was
performed over the remains. The monument, in the style described, was
soon placed over the grave, and the inscription was thus meagre because,
in the then state of the public mind, there was imminent danger
that stone would be raised or defaced. It is not so now. The time
has at last arrived when these interesting facts may be made public. No
one will now desecrate the grave of the dear gallant dead; and Phil. will
there rest unmolested until "the archangel's trump shall sound," unless
his friends or relations should choose to bring his precious dust to
mingle with his native soil.

This statement would fail of completeness unless some reference is made to
Phil. Tracy's career as a soldier, including the circumstances of his death.

At the election of the officers of the Sixth (Col. A. H. Colquitt's)
regiment, Mr. Tracy was elected Major. Hitherto he had paid no attention
to military matters; physical infirmities had prevented. He was too lame
to march, and his vision too defective to sufficiently see. Nevertheless,
when the strife came, he claimed no exemption for reason of either or
both, and came promptly to the front to undertake the duties of an able-
bodied man. He applied himself diligently, and soon made himself a
proficient officer. At the battle of "Seven Pines" or "Fair Oaks," he was
twice wounded. The first was in the face, stunning him; and before he
recovered from this he was shot through the leg, between the knee and the
hip, and fell. This was in May or June, 1862. He was furloughed, and
came home to have his wounds healed. Before he got well the second battle
of Manassas was fought and our army marched into Maryland. Major Tracy
chafed to return to his command, and such was his zeal and anxiety that he
left while the wound in his leg was yet unhealed, to return his command.
He went by the way of Richmond, and tarried there for a day, perhaps. His
friends, seeing his condition, and knowing that with his wounds he was
physically disqualified for a soldier, persuaded him to apply for and
obtain discharge, about which there was not a doubt. But the name pride,
courage and patriotism that caused him to enter the service would not
accept an honorable discharge, although bearing upon his person the scars
of two wounds received in one battle. Forward to the front was his word
and action.

At nightfall, or a little thereafter, on the night just before the battle,
he with several other officers and men arrived at Harper's Ferry. It was
miles to the line of battle. It was night, and the river to cross; yet,
some time between midnight and day, the wounded, lame, and almost blind
Southerner reported himself for the terrible duty of the next day, at
General Colquitt's headquarters. He, with the General and other officers
of the Sixth Georgia, took, before it was yet light, their rough
Confederate camp meal, and then went to his death. The fight began
at early dawn -- McClellan's seventy thousand fresh or rested and well fed
troops against General Lee's thirty-five thousand wearied and hungry. The
battle soon became general and sanguinary. The regiment and brigade to
which Major Tracy belonged suffered with extreme severity. All the field
officers in command of the regiment were killed. These were -- Lieutenant-
Colonel Newton, Major Tracy, and the Senior Captain acting as Major --
Captain Plane, I believe; true it is, anyway, that Captain Plane was among
the slain. There, Levi Smith and Marcellus Douglass, both Colonels,
received their death-wounds, and died upon the field. There were other
distinguished Georgians killed, not now remembered; and in fact, in that
battle, the Georgia blood shed was plentiful and conspicuous in the noble
men from whose veins the life-streams poured like water. It was there
that General Lawton received his very painful, disabling and permanently
affecting wound; and General Gordon his five, so deep and so
dangerous that his recovery may stand comparison with miracles. All
things considered, it was the hardest battle of the many hard ones of that
fearful struggle. There the Confederates showed, not only their usual
courage and daring in an unusual manner, but a spirit of [?] before or
since. Confronted by more than double their numbers or well appointed and
well equipped troops, they, worn and hungry, with the broad Potomac
between them and their territory, saved the fortune of the Confederacy;
but saved, alas! only to be lost at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

The best account we have of Major Tracy's death is that about nine o'clock
a.m. he was shot through the thigh, severing the artery. Falling, a less-
wounded comrade hobbled to him and offered his assistance; but the Major
told hime to save himself -- it was all over with him. Purer or brighter
spirit never winged its flight from the carnage of a battle-field than
when Phil. Tracy drew his last breath. At that moment, my friend, and you
might have been in the midst of comfort and enjoyment at Macon or
Richmond, and no one would have reproached you in deed, word or thought.
If you had not only been so swift to arrive at Herper's Ferry, or had
tarried ther (as others did) till the coming dawn, your sweet life, your
genial temper, and your surpassing mental endowments would have been saved
to family friends and country. But no! You chose to follow the lead of
conscience and duty, to sacrifice your life with all its present charms
and yet brighter future, that your principles might prevail and your
country saved from the heel of the conqueror. Looking to what is now sad
history, and you chose the better and happier part. The unfortunate
Southron now is he who is cursed with life -- the fortunate, he who is
blessed with death.

It is [?] that a few of the more prominent facts in the history of such a
heroic soul should accompany this plain but heartfelt tribute. He was the
oldest son of Judge Edward D. Tracy, of Macon, Georgia, and was there born
about the year 1830. His brother, and only brother by the marriage, was
E. D. Tracy, Jr., a Brigadier General in our service, who was killed at
Port Gibson, Mississippi, whither Pemberton had dispatched General Bowen
with six thousand men to dispute Grant's passage of the river with
sixty thousand. Bowen was there also killed -- another gallant
native Georgian (of Savannah). General Tracy's remains being within our
lines have been borne to Rose Hill cemetery. Phil., after taking his
academic course at home, was sent to Yale. Returning from thence, he was
admitted to the bar, but before entering on the practice, edited the Macon
TELEGRAPH, first under the wing of that nestor of the Georgia press,
Samuel J. Ray, and then by himself. Retiring from the paper, he began the
practice and became connected with Hon. Barnard Hill and Hon. Thomas P.
Stubbs, under the firm name of Stubbs, Hill & Tracy. While in this
connection, and rapidly rising in his profession, in the year 1859 he was
elected to the State Senate. He had married the beautiful and wealthy
Miss Carrie Rawls, then Mrs. Walker, but before the tocsin of war, she and
their babe had seen the last of earth.

Major Tracy, on his father's side, was descended from the Tracys, of
Litchfield, Connecticut, who were among the original settlers of that
place. A few years before the war, at a centennial celebration of that
settlement, Donald G. Mitchell, more generally known as Ike Marvel,
delivered the oration, and referred to Judge Tracy, of Georgia, and his
brothers of New York, as descended from the original Litchfield Tracys.
The brothers, of New York, were Albert and Phineas, both of whom have
represented their State in Congress. Both were men of magnificent minds,
and the former made great fame as a lawyer. There is no Georgia lawyer of
much experience but has found in his researchesthe finished and scholarly
judgements of the New York Senate as pronounced by Senator Tracy. Judge
Tracy (Phil's father), was a man of the first order of ability, and
excelled as a wit and humorist. Many are the [?] of him tradition brings
to the present generation of lawyers.

Major Tracy on his mother's side was a Campbell. His mother was a sister
of Duncan G. Campbell, an able lawyer and politician of Georgia, belonging
to the generation preceding this. He was "the right arm" of old Jack
Clark in his terrific contests with Crawford and Troup, and his memory is
beloved by foe as well as friend. He was the father of our John A.
Campbell, now an oppressed subject of Louisiana, but a Judge of the
Supreme Court of the United States when it was the tribunal of a
constitutional republic. Philemon Tracy exhibited a large share of the
talent which legitimately was his birthright on the paternal and maternal
side. As an orator, he approached the best; as a conversationalist, he
was brilliant; but as a writer he excelled, including himself is his
departments of oratory and conversation. To give anything like an
accurate idea of his excellence as a writer in thus surpassing himself in
conversation, it can be stated that he was one of the very few we meet in
a lifetime to whom we are willing to play the part of listener all the
time; and yet, as much as we loved to hear him talk, we prefer to read his
writings if compelled to make choice, yet having the chance of both, enjoy
both. He was a youth of rare gifts. I say youth, for it must be realized
that at his death, now verging on thirty-two, and that his reputation was
made before he had attained his twenty-fifth year. He was certainly the
most gifted man I ever met among his contemporaries, with one exception --
and it might well be considered who had the advantage -- and he was Julian
Cumming, of Augusta, now also, alas! in the spirit-land. When these two
young men would meet in conversation on a propitious occasion, it was rich
treat to every intelligent hearer. Their minds were as highly cultured as
naturally endowed. Their reading was extensive and well treasured. A
gentlemanly refinement gave a fascinating tinge to every pleasant piece of
knowledge, every maxim or epigram, and every sally of wit or humor
uttered. One might shut his eyes, and forgetting for a moment where he
was, realize that he was present with that splendid corps of talkers that
made that famous Literary Club of London, of whom old Sam Johnson was
chief, and that there was a tilt between Burke and Garrick. When it went
around that Julian Cumming was in Macon, there was instantly a gathering
of the clans to witness the intellectual gladiatorship between him and Phil.

I have said that Major Tracy had physical defects of limb and sight. Is
it not strange that a man who was too lame to march and too blind to shoot
should succeed in the role of a soldier? And yet he did, as his commanding
officers will day attest. He was so near-sighted that without the aid of
glasses he could not tell his best known friend six feet. His lameness
was, according to Trelawney, the same as that of Byron. There was just
limp enough to interest you in his gait, and yet too much to make a
pedestrian. It appears that nature does try to correct her own mistakes,
and hence, if a child is born lame, you may expect compensation in
extraordinary intellectual gifts, as was the case with Byron and Scott.
So, too, if blind, or of defective vision approaching blindness, in this
latter case the child is apt to be gifted in music or poetry, where the
tongue or the fingers can serve and delight without, or with very little
sight. In Major Tracy's case nature had so bountifully compensated him
for his lameness in his intellectual supremacy that there was no margin to
make other amends in the way of the fine arts for his want of sight.

In the rescuing of Major Tracy's body and placing it in a spot where there
is an enduring memorial, we have another illustration that "blood is
thicker than water!" yes, "thicker" than much thicker things than water.
Some of the leading families of the North are of Southern origin.
Likewise, many of the South are wholly or in part of Northern origin.
There was a time when even South Carolina and Massachusetts fraternized
socially, when politics was honorable and gentlemanly. As we find John
Adams, John [?], and Roger [?] and find at the North, likewise, given the
names of Charles Pinckney, John Rutledge and Arthur Middleton. Even
Charles Sumner's father was named in honor of the old veteran, Charles
Pinckney, and was known all his life as "Pinckney Sumner." The son, I
believe, was likewise named; but he became so aggressive, as well as
progressive in a wrong direction, that he dropped the Southern part of his
father's name when he dropped his father's principles.

Notwithstanding the gulf the war has made between the North and South,
there yet remains that feeling of sympathy which exists between true
gentlemen everywhere; and when these gentlemen happen to agree upon the
true principles of the government, they are bound to each other as "with
hooks of steel;" and when, as in the case of Philemon Tracy, the man of
either section rises and asserts "the nature that is in him," despite of
war and hate, to that man we tender every honor.

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Rose Hill Cemetery

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