USA > New York > Tioga County > Our county and its people : a memorial history of Tioga County, New York > Part 50
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fighting of the day. Under the hot fire of the enemy, who were sheltered in works, a portion of the advancing line gave way. Tracy's regiment halted, whereupon the colonel seized the colors and led his men forward. The regiment carried the works and drove the enemy before them, penetrating some distance within their lines. As a result the brigade was enabled to reform and hold its broken line. Soon after the advance of the army to Spottsylvania, Col. Tracy was prostrated by sickness and was sent to the hospital, and finally tendered his resignation. By the au- tumn he had partially regained his strength, and was commis- sioned anew as colonel of the 127th U. S. Volunteers. Col. Tracy was now assigned to the command of the important post at Elmira, comprising the prison camp and the draft rendezvous. Tracy's administration of the post was firm but judicious, and the prison- ers under his charge were humanely and considerately treated. This was clearly shown in the famous debate in the house of rep- resentatives several years later, when Mr. Hill, of Georgia, reflect- ed on the treatment of southern prisoners during the war. Col. Tracy remained at this post until the close of the war, when he resigned, having been brevetted brigadier general. On the Ist of July, 1865, Gen. Tracy entered the law firm of Benedict, Burr & Benedict, in New York, Judge Benedict having recently been appointed to the bench of the United States court. In February, 1866, he removed with his family to Brooklyn. He still retained and carried on his Owego farm, but his residence was thenceforth in Brooklyn. On October 1, 1866, General Tracy was appointed United States attorney for the eastern district of New York. Here he found himself confronted with an extraordinary condition of affairs, demanding the utmost skill and resolution. The enforce- ment of the laws for the collection of the internal revenue had become almost a nullity. Whiskey, the manufacture of which was taxed two dollars per gallon, was selling openly in the market at $1.12. Four hundred distilleries were running in Brooklyn alone. The government service was pervaded with corruption, and the authorities connived at open defiance of the law. Gen. Tracy declared war on the whole business. The guilty parties were indicted. One of the foremost examples thus made was the
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collector of internal revenue, who was indicted for fraud upon the revenue, tried, convicted, and sent to prison. Other convictions followed in rapid succession. The "whiskey war" lasted through the year 1867 and part of 1868, and created much popular excite- ment. In 1868 Mr. Tracy was constantly consulted by the national authorities on the subject of new revenue legislation, and he drew the outline of an internal revenue measure, the features of which were incorporated in the bill introduced in congress during the session, which ultimately became a law, and is substantially the law to-day. In March, 1873, after nearly seven years of service, General Tracy resigned the office of district attorney, and after spending several months in Europe with his family, resumed the practice of the law in Brooklyn and New York. During the next fifteen years General Tracy devoted hinself to his profession. He acquired an extensive practice, and his successes placed him easily at the head of the Brooklyn bar, and among the foremost of that of New York. His practice included both civil and criminal ac- tions. In the latter part of 1881 General Tracy was appointed by Governor Cornell to the seat on the bench of the court of appeals made temporarily vacant by the assignment of Judge Andrews as chief judge. He served until the end of Judge Andrews' term, January 1, 1883. During this period many of the most important opinions of the court fell to Judge Tracy, and none of them have been overruled or even modified. After the close of his service in the court of appeals, Judge Tracy took several months of much needed rest, spending the summer of 1883 in Europe. Upon his return he devoted his attention once more to what had now be- come an exceptionally large and lucrative practice, in which he continued until 1889. During the twenty-four years of his resi- dence in Brooklyn, from 1865 to 1889, General Tracy bore an active part in all political movements, always as a devoted republican, but always in the interest of good government, political integrity, and above all, an honest administration of public affairs. He was constant in his attendance at primaries and conventions, taking a leading part in their work. His allies in the political contests of Kings county were Gen. James Jourdan and Mr. Silas B. Dutcher, and the trio was remarkable not only for the political power which
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they wielded, but for their commanding presence, which latter fact gave them the nickname of the "Three Graces," under which they were long known in the politics of the county. In 1880 Gen. Tracy was a delegate from this state to the Chicago convention, which nominated Garfield for the presidency. In the contest for the nomination he supported the candidacy of General Grant, and was one of the famous "306" who held out to the end. He worked, however, untiringly for the success of Garfield and Arthur in the campaign. One of the most honorable episodes in General Tracy's career was the part taken by him in the great contest for the Brooklyn mayoralty in 1881. The reform charter which had re- cently been adopted concentrated all power in the hands of the mayor, but the isolated movements of the reformers were in dan- ger of failure for want of harmony and co-operation. Under these circumstances General Tracy accepted the regular republican nomi- nation. He thus became the master of the situation. By himself. withdrawing in favor of Seth Low, upon whom all parties would unite, he compelled the withdrawal of Ripley Ropes, who could not harmonize contending elements, and so secured the nomina- tion and triumphant election of Low as the first reform mayor of Brooklyn. Immediately afterward he was appointed judge of the court of appeals. In 1882 General Tracy was a candidate for judge of the supreme court in the second department, on the Folger ticket, and shared the fate of that disastrous nomination, although running far ahead of the ticket. During all this period General Tracy had kept up his farm, known as Marshland, at Owego, which he had devoted especially to the breeding of trotting horses. In the course of years the Marshland stud became famous. In 1889, however, he gave up the business and sold most of his stock. In 1889 the question of selecting a member of the cabinet from New York for the new republican national administration became one of great difficulty. General Harrison finally determined to go outside the two factions into which the state was divided, and called upon each of them to name men who would be acceptable to it. The name of General Tracy was found on both lists, and he was accordingly chosen to fill the important post of secretary of the navy. Upon entering office, although like his predecessors
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new to naval affairs, Secretary Tracy devoted himself with char- acteristic energy and industry to the problems presented. He early satisfied himself that if the United States was to have a navy at all worthy of the name, or that was in any degree com- mensurate with the demands of the country, a radical departure must be made in naval construction. With this view, the first year of his administration was devoted to the gradual develop- ment of three great types of fighting ships, each of which should be the best of its kind in the world. The problem was successfully worked out; the three types were developed by the department, and notwithstanding the tremendous opposition with which the programme was at first received, both in congress and in the press, it was at length triumphantly adopted. The bill for the first three battle-ships passed on the 30th of June, 1890, and on the 1st of July advertisements were issued inviting proposals for their con- struction. By equally rapid and successful steps General Tracy secured the adoption and advanced the construction of the other vessels. The work was pushed from the beginning with energy, and the result has been that within an incredibly short time the United States has come into the possession of four armored battle- ships of the first class, of front 10,000 to 11,000 tons displacement, the Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon and Iowa, unsurpassed as machines of offensive and defensive power ; two cruisers of 7,350 tons of the highest known speed of war vessels, the Columbia and Minneapolis; and two armored cruisers of 8,000 and 9,000 tons respectively, the New York and Brooklyn, combining the four qualities of speed, protection, battery, and coal endurance in a degree unknown in any other marine structure. Secretary Tracy's administration of the navy department gave attention also to the improvement of the quality of armor, and by a series of elaborate experiments and tests, succeeded by the employment of nickel steel and by new processes of tempering in developing an armor far surpassing in qualities of resistance any material hitherto in use for the purpose. The new armor has since been adopted by every important naval power in the world. As has been well said, "General Tracy stripped the armor protection from the British fleet." In naval administration a reforni of the highest impor-
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tance was adopted, by which the employment of labor in navy yards, hitherto based entirely on political services, was placed on a business footing, and opened to the best workmen, whatever their political affiliations. The high state of efficiency to which the naval administration was brought during Secretary Tracy's term of office was shown at the Chilian crisis in the latter part of 1891. A series of events coming without warning brought the United States to the verge of war with Chili. Preparations were inimmediately made to meet the situation, and they were carried out with such rapidity and thoroughness that when the critical moment arrived the United States had its whole naval force in a position to assume the offensive at a moment's notice, and operate directly upon the ports and seacoast of Chili. The crisis was, however, happily averted. At the close of the Harrison administration General Tracy resumed his law practice in New York. He came out of the navy department with a reputation for administrative ability unsurpassed by that of any of his predecessors, and approached by but few. His high character and sagacious judgment, his in- timate knowledge of business, and his constructive faculty in the direction of great affairs, gave his counsel great weight in the de- liberations of the cabinet ; and he left a distinct mark upon the course of the Harrison administration. The terrible blow under- gone by General Tracy at the time of the burning of his residence in Washington, in February, 1890, in the loss of his wife and daughter, and his own narrow escape, drew to him the sympathy of the whole country. With remarkable courage and fortitude he resumed, after a short interval, the direction of the business of the department, and sought to recover from the shock by unceas- ing labor and devotion to his duties. As a lawyer General Tracy is distinguished by an unusual power of analysis, a faculty of close and logical reasoning, and a rapid and unerring judgment in fix- ing upon the strong and weak points in a case. His long experi- ence in an exceptionally varied practice has given him a broad grasp of all departments of the law, while as an advocate his clear and skillful methods of presentation and his powers of persuasive utterance have made him successful alike before judges and juries. He stands almost alone among his contemporaries in the fact that
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his successes have been won equally in the two great departments of civil and criminal jurisprudence, and in the latter no less as the prosecutor of crime than as the defender of innocence. In 1896 General Tracy was appointed by Governor Morton one of the com- missioners charged with the duty of drafting the charter for the Greater New York. At the first meeting of the commission General Tracy was unanimously chosen its president and devoted his time for several months to the great and arduous duty of fram- ing the new charter for the Greater City of New York, which was subsequently enacted into law by the legislature.
GENERAL ISAAC S. CATLIN, an excellent portrait of whom orna- ments this volume, was born at the Catlin homestead near Owego, N. Y., on July 8, 1835. He was educated in the common schools of his neighborhood and at the Owego academy under the tuition of William Smyth, who has since attained distinction in public life in various capacities. He early chose the legal profes- sion and began its study in the office of Benjamin F. Tracy, who had just commenced his distinguished career as a lawyer, and continued it in New York city, where he was admitted to the bar in 1857, shortly after arriving at his majority. When Gilbert C. Walker, afterwards governor of the state of Virginia, retired from the firm of Tracy, Warner & Walker, young Catlin was invited to take his place as junior member of the firm, where he remained in active practice until he entered the union army in April, 1861. In the fall of 1860 he was nominated to the position of mayor of Owego and elected without opposition, being the youngest man up to that time who had held that office. Before his term expired the fren- zied secessionists of Charleston, South Carolina, fired upon the national flag at Fort Sumter and the general government prepared for war to save the union of the states. Upon the evening of the day on which President Lincoln issued his proclamation for 75,000 troops, a meeting, presided over by Hon. Thomas Farrington, was held in the Ahwaga hall to enroll volunteers under that call. and Catlin was among the first who enrolled his name, and after the maximum number of names had been obtained he was at once unanimously elected captain of the company. He and many
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others claim that this was the first full company of volunteers en- rolled in the north, and it is said the claim has never been seriously refuted. Catlin was a soldier by instinct. He sprang from fight- ing stock on both sides of his family. His grandfather, Nathaniel Catlin, enlisted at New Haven in the early days of the war for American independence, and served bravely and faithfully until the cause was gained. His maternal great-grandfather, Garrett Brodhead, served with Pennsylvania troops, and his great uncle, General Daniel Brodhead, of Milford, Pennsylvania, served with distinction directly under Washington, who gave him command of the department of the Delaware. An autograph letter from Washington highly commending General Brodhead is now in the hands of the latter's descendants. A handsome monument was recently dedicated to his memory at Milford, on which occasion the village and surrounding country presented an imposing spec- tacle. Captain Catlin's company joined the late General Frederick Townsend's 3rd regiment of New York Volunteers, with which he participated in the first battle of the war at Big Bethel, Va. Of his conduct in that action General Townsend wrote: "There was no braver officer on that field than Captain Catlin." In the spring of 1862 he resigned from that regiment, which was doing guard duty at Fort McHenry, Md., and soon thereafter was ap- pointed to the office of adjutant of the post at Binghamton, N. Y., where he aided Colonel Benjamin F. Tracy in raising two full regiments of infantry and part of a third regiment. He was com- missioned, in August, 1862, as lieutenant-colonel of the 109th New York Infantry, and in the same month accompanied it, under Colonel Tracy's command, to the seat of war. In the spring of 1864 the regiment joined the 9th army corps, commanded by the gallant Burnside, and was assigned by him to the 1st brigade, 3rd division of that corps, where it remained until the close of the war. At the battle of the Wilderness, where Grant and Lee first "crossed swords," while leading his regiment, Col. Tracy was dis- abled so that further active service for the time was rendered im- possible, and, though he rejoined his regiment at Chancellorsville and commanded it in the first battles in and about Spottsylvania, yet it was found he either had to ask for leave of absence or resign. It comported with his sense of duty and manhood to resign and
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give the government an opportunity to fill the vacancy, whereupon the officers of the regiment urgently recommended the promotion of Catlin, which was subsequently endorsed by Generals Hart- ranft, Willcox. Burnside, Meade and Grant. It is needless to say he promptly received his commission as colonel. He commanded the regiment at the subsequent engagements at Spottsylvania, North Anna, Gaines Farms, and in other actions, and finally he commanded a provisional brigade at the battle of the "Crater," on the occasion of the explosion of the mine, July 30, 1864, before Petersburg, Va. In this horrible slaughter pen he was twice wounded, having his right leg severed a few inches below the knee by a fragment of a shell. After sufficiently recovered to get about on crutches, General Catlin was assigned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, to duty in Washington as president of a military court martial and commission, in which position he served until June, 1865, when his regiment was ordered to be mustered out of service. He accompanied the regiment to Owego, where grand preparations had been made to give the "returning heroes" from victorious battlefields a fitting welcome. Hon. William Smyth, the mayor of Owego, received them in a patriotic address in the name of the citizens of Tioga, Broome and Tompkins coun- ties, where the companies composing the regiment were recruited, and in the words of the report published in the Owego Gazette at the time, "General Catlin, sitting on his horse, eloquently re- sponded in an able address." It is proper and just to state in this biography, and to that extent make it a matter of history in his native county, that after General Catlin began to wear an artificial limb and could ride a little on horseback, he made a strenuous personal effort to be permitted to join his regiment at the front, General O. B. Willcox having expressed a desire to give him a brigade in case of a vacancy in his division. It was concluded, however, that he was doing valuable service on court martial duty, and that on account of his wounds it would be impracticable for him to perform effective service in the field, and hence his appli- cation was disapproved. General Catlin received three brevet commissions for gallantry in action, and one for gallant and meri- torions services during the war. Immediately after the war he resumed the practice of law in Tioga county, and in the fall of
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1865 was elected to be the district attorney of that county, but before his term expired he applied for a position in the regular army, which he received in June, 1867. He was assigned to staff duty at Louisville, Ky., which was under the command of General George H. Thomas, where he served until the summer of 1869, when he was ordered to the recruiting station in New York for duty. In May, 1870, he was ordered before the "retiring board," of which Major General McDowell was president, by which he was placed upon the retired list of the army as full colonel of infantry, having theretofore received his commission as major general by brevet for gallantry at the battle before Petersburg, Va., July 30, 1864. He was then appointed assistant to the United States district attorney for the eastern district of New York, with headquarters in Brooklyn, where he served two years, when he again entered into partnership with General Benjamin F. Tracy in the practice of law in the cities of Brooklyn and New York. In 1874 he was nominated for the office of district attorney for Kings county, but retired in behalf of General Philip S. Crook.
He was again nominated in 1877 and elected, overcoming a party majority against him of over fifteen thousand. He was re-nomi- nated in 1880, and re-elected by a majority of nearly 12,000. During his term of six years in Kings county, he prosecuted many important cases, some of which will always be considered among the most celebrated cases in the criminal jurisprudence of the country. In 1885 he was nominated to the office of surrogate of Kings county, but declined it, and two days afterwards against his protest was nominated for mayor of Brooklyn, being defeated by the independent candidature of the late General John B. Wood- ward, who received only 13,500 votes, but just enough to defeat the regular nominee. This experiment has been recently repeated in the election for mayor of Greater New York with similar results. In 1887 he retired from the republican organization and became an active advocate for the election of Grover Cleveland in the presi- dential campaign of 1888, and continued to be active in the demo- cratic party in city, state and national campaigns until 1896. He was nominated for congress in 1893 in a largely democratic dis- trict, but he was constrained to decline the nomination on the ground that grave doubts had been expressed by eminent lawyers
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and judges as to the effect his election as a representative to congress would have upon his rank and pay in the army. He was offered the nomination for lieutenant governor on the democratic ticket in 1896 which he declined. During General Catlin's professional career he was almost uniformly success- ful whichever side of the case he espoused. He was prose- cuting officer for ten years and never had but one acquittal by a jury, and has defended many cases for murder in the first and second degrees and never had a client convicted of either offense. He was nine years counsel for the sheriff of Kings county and gained on an average three out of five cases brought against the sheriff, and in the other cases the sheriff was fully indemnified. At present his time is mainly occupied as counsel for several large corporations in New York city and for the individual stockholders, which relieves him almost entirely from the general practice of the profession. During General Catlin's residence in Brooklyn, he has been five times selected to be grand marshal of the Grand Army of the Republic, and on Columbian Day, celebrated on the 14th day of October, 1892, he was chosen by the municipal author- ities to take charge of and command the more than fifty thousand people who were in line on that occasion. At the centennial cele- bration of the declaration of independence commemorated at Fort Greene in Brooklyn, on the 4th day of July, 1876, he was selected by the mayor and common council to deliver the centennial oration which was subsequently printed in pamphlet form by the city of Brooklyn, and was favorably criticised as one of the many able and eloquent orations delivered on that notable and historic occa- sion at various localities. The last important function performed by General Catlin in his native county was the delivery of an ora- tion at the unveiling and dedication of the statue in honor of the soldiers who enlisted from that county in the war for the union, on the 4th of July, 1891. It is claimed by his friends, and so con- sidered by the editor of this volume who heard it, that this was the ablest effort of his entire career. United States Senator Thomas C. Platt presided at this celebration, and the then secretary of the navy, Benjamin F. Tracy, delivered a profound and able address. General Catlin's residence is in the Borough of Brooklyn in Greater New York, but his country seat is the old Catlin homestead in the
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town of Owego where he was born, which he recently purchased and has christened " Meadowfield." It is concededly one of the most picturesque and comfortable country residences in the state, being delightfully and healthfully situated in the charming valley of the Susquehanna, with a broad lawn of seventy-five acres sloping to the shores of the river made classic by the pen of Feni- more Cooper and Charles A. Munger. Here, past the milestone of three score years, in vigorous health of mind and body, Gen- eral Catlin with his interesting family passes the summer months, and to which he pays regular visits during the entire year. His son, George de Grasse Catlin, a promising youth, who is in his sophomore year at Columbia University, is his companion in daily excursions about the country on horseback, or in driving and boating and fishing. His wife, who was Miss Virginie Hearne Bacon, and who presides over the household at "Meadowfield," is a charming and accomplished woman and is a great favorite among the many friends of the family in and about Owego. Gen- eral Catlin makes no secret of the fact that when he retires from active business life he expects to make " Meadowfield " his perma- nent residence, and with that view he proposes to make every im- provement in the place that will contribute to his comfort and happiness in his declining years, and which will comport with the wishes and desires of his family.
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