December 2, 1864---A Gracie in Gray

DECEMBER 2, 1864:        

General Archibald Gracie III C.S.A. (b. 1832) is killed in action today at Petersburg. Gracie is from a prominent New York family. Gracie Mansion, now the residence of New York City’s mayors, was built by his grandfather. Despite Gracie’s Northern pedigree, he chose to throw in his lot with the South.

General Gracie’s son and namesake, Colonel Archibald Gracie IV (of the postwar New York 7^th Militia)  (1859-1912) is known to history as the last survivor to leave the R.M.S. TITANIC when the great ship sank on April 15, 1912. The ship literally went down under his feet. Colonel Gracie suffered severe hypothermia while in the 28 degree waters of the North Atlantic and never recovered from the ordeal, dying in December 1912. 

Colonel Gracie was an amateur historian, and wrote two books, the ponderous The Truth About Chickamauga (where his father had fought with distinction) and The Truth About The Titanic (Colonel Gracie referred to every man who rushed a lifeboat in derogatory racial and ethnic terms, and focused mostly on the doings of the members of the Social Register who were aboard the doomed vessel --- it should be noted that his behavior was not at all unusual for the era). Despite its flaws, The Truth About The Titanic is still in print (as Titanic: A Survivor’s Story), and Gracie remains one of the better-known figures of that ‘night to remember.”