Born on 5 April 1830, near Oswego, N.Y., Benjamin Franklin Tracy was reared on a farm and educated at Oswego Academy. Admitted to the New York Bar in 1851, Tracy served as district attorney of Tioga County, N.Y., from 1853 to 1859. Elected to the State Assembly in 1861, he urged full support of the national government in the Civil War. In the summer of 1862, Tracy raised the 109th and 137th New York Volunteer regiments and took the field as a colonel with the former. During the bloody Wilderness Campaign in the spring of 1864, he led his troops with conspicuous gallantry. Tracy's bravery and steadfastness in the arduous and difficult campaign won him the brevet rank of Brigadier-General and the Medal of Honor. For the remainder of the war, Tracy served as a colonel in the 127th Regiment and commanded the military prison and the recruiting camp at Elmira, N.Y. In 1866, after the end of the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson appointed Tracy district attorney for the eastern district of New York. In 1873, he resumed his private practice in Brooklyn, N.Y. From 1881 to 1882, he assumed duties as judge of the New York Court of Appeals. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed the lawyer to the post of Secretary of the Navy. He entered at once into the program of building up the Navy with new, modern ships and of enacting much-needed reforms. During his administration, battleships Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Oregon and cruiser Brooklyn were completed or authorized. He also organized the naval militia and established the Board of Construction and Repair to correlate the work of various bureaus. Following an active career in public service and leaving the Navy in better shape than he had found it upon taking office as Secretary, Tracy retired to his Tioga County farm where he raised horses until his death on 6 August 1915
Library of Congress photo cph 3c22054