James M. Tracy was born around 1836 in Montgomery County, Indiana. He eventually moved to Urbana, Illinois, and he married Mary E. Ling on June 12, 1860. They had at least four children: Edgar, born around 1864; Harry, born around 1867; James, born around 1881; and Charles, born around 1878. He worked as a day laborer, and by 1860, he owned $400 of real estate.
He enlisted in the Union army on June 1, 1861, and he mustered in as a sergeant in Company K of the 25th Illinois Infantry on August 9. According to his enlistment records, he was 5 feet, 8 ¾ inches tall, with light hair and light eyes. He expressed devotion to the Union, writing in August 1861 that he left “wife babe a comfortable home & all that is near and dear to a man in this world…to fight the battles of the glorious Union.”
The regiment took part in the Battle of Pea Ridge, the siege of Corinth, and the Battle of Stones River. He was promoted to captain in December 1862. As he later explained, he was “shot through the body + back” at Stones River on December 31, 1862. In September 1863, army officials transferred him to Company F of the 8th Veteran Reserve Corps. He mustered out on September 26, 1867.
He returned to Urbana after the war, and he worked as an “abstractor of deeds.” He applied for a federal pension in May 1868 and eventually secured one. By 1870, he owned $1,000 of real estate and $4,300 of personal property. The family moved to Eel Township, Indiana, in the late 1800s, and his wife died in 1899. In May 1900, he was admitted to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Marion, Indiana. He suffered a “stroke of paralysis” in December 1900, and he died of “general paresis” in Marion on September 13, 1901.