Benjamin Franklin Butler was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts.
106 Facts About Benjamin Butler
2.
Benjamin Butler was a colorful and often controversial figure on the national stage and on the Massachusetts political scene, serving five terms in the US House of Representatives and running several campaigns for governor before his election to that office in 1882.
3.
Benjamin Butler was dismissed from the Union Army after his failures in the First Battle of Fort Fisher, but he soon won election to the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts.
4.
Benjamin Butler was an early proponent of the prospect of impeaching Johnson.
5.
Additionally, as Chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, Benjamin Butler authored the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and coauthored the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1875.
6.
In Massachusetts, Benjamin Butler was often at odds with more conservative members of the political establishment over matters of both style and substance.
7.
Benjamin Butler ran for president on the Greenback Party and the Anti-Monopoly Party tickets in 1884.
8.
Benjamin Franklin Butler was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, the sixth and youngest child of John Butler and Charlotte Ellison Butler.
9.
Benjamin Butler's father served under General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 and later became a privateer, dying of yellow fever in the West Indies not long after Benjamin was born.
10.
Benjamin Butler's mother was a devout Baptist who encouraged him to read the Bible and prepare for the ministry.
11.
In 1827, at the age of nine, Benjamin Butler was awarded a scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spent one term.
12.
Benjamin Butler was described by a schoolmate as "a reckless, impetuous, headstrong, boy", and regularly got into fights.
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Benjamin Butler's mother moved the family in 1828 to Lowell, Massachusetts, where she operated a boarding house for workers at the textile mills.
14.
In 1836, Benjamin Butler sought permission to go instead to West Point for a military education, but he did not receive one of the few places available.
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Benjamin Butler continued his studies at Waterville, where he sharpened his rhetorical skills in theological discussions and began to adopt Democratic Party political views.
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Benjamin Butler returned to Lowell, where he clerked and read law as an apprentice with a local lawyer.
17.
Benjamin Butler was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1840 and opened a practice in Lowell.
18.
In 1844, Benjamin Butler was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.
19.
Benjamin Butler quickly gained a reputation as a dogged criminal defense lawyer who seized on every misstep of his opposition to gain victories for his clients, and became a specialist in bankruptcy law.
20.
Benjamin Butler first attracted general attention by advocating the passage of a law establishing a ten-hour day for laborers, but he opposed labor strikes over the matter.
21.
Benjamin Butler instituted a ten-hour work day at the Middlesex Mills.
22.
Benjamin Butler sued the paper's editor and publisher for that and other allegations that had been printed about himself.
23.
Benjamin Butler blamed the Whig judge, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, for the acquittal, inaugurating a feud between the two that would last for decades and significantly color Benjamin Butler's reputation in the state.
24.
Benjamin Butler was elected a delegate to the 1853 state constitutional convention with strong Catholic support, and was elected to the state senate in 1858, a year dominated by Republican victories in the state.
25.
Benjamin Butler was nominated for governor in 1859 and ran on a pro-slavery, pro-tariff platform.
26.
Benjamin Butler ended up supporting Breckinridge over Douglas against state party instructions, ruining his standing with the state party apparatus.
27.
Benjamin Butler was nominated for governor in the 1860 election by a Breckinridge splinter of the state party, but trailed far behind other candidates.
28.
Benjamin Butler eventually rose to become colonel of a regiment of primarily Irish American men.
29.
In 1855, the nativist Know Nothing Governor Henry J Gardner disbanded Butler's militia, but Butler was elected brigadier general after the militia was reorganized.
30.
Benjamin Butler met with Jefferson Davis and learned that he was not the Union man that Benjamin Butler had previously thought he was.
31.
Benjamin Butler took advantage of the mobilization to secure a contract with the state for his mill to supply heavy cloth to the militia.
32.
Benjamin Butler worked to secure a leadership position should the militia be deployed.
33.
Benjamin Butler first offered his services to Governor Andrew in March 1861.
34.
Benjamin Butler telegraphed Secretary of War Simon Cameron, with whom he was acquainted, suggesting that Cameron issue a request for a brigadier and general staff from Massachusetts, which soon afterward appeared on Governor Andrew's desk.
35.
Benjamin Butler then used banking contacts to ensure that loans that would be needed to fund the militia operations would be conditioned on his appointment.
36.
Benjamin Butler traveled with the 8th, which left Philadelphia the next day amid news that railroad connections around Baltimore were being severed.
37.
Benjamin Butler landed his troops, occupying the Naval Academy.
38.
Benjamin Butler expanded Camp Hamilton, established in the adjacent town of Hampton, Virginia, just beyond the confines of the fort and within the range of its guns.
39.
Benjamin Butler was sent back to Massachusetts to raise new forces.
40.
Benjamin Butler argued that Virginians considered them to be chattel property, and that they could not appeal to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 because of Virginia's secession.
41.
Benjamin Butler directed the first Union expedition to Ship Island, off the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in December 1861, and in May 1862 commanded the force that conducted the capture of New Orleans after its occupation by the Navy following the Battle of Forts Jackson and St Philip.
42.
Benjamin Butler devised a plan for relief of the poor, demanded oaths of allegiance from anyone who sought any privilege from government, and confiscated weapons.
43.
In preparation, Benjamin Butler imposed strict quarantines and introduced a rigid program of garbage disposal.
44.
Benjamin Butler was nicknamed "Beast Butler" or alternatively "Spoons Butler," the latter nickname deriving primarily from an incident in which Butler seized a 38-piece set of silverware from a New Orleans woman attempting to cross the Union lines.
45.
Shortly after the Confiscation Act of 1862 became effective in September, Benjamin Butler increasingly relied upon it as a means of grabbing cotton.
46.
Since the Act permitted confiscation of property owned by anyone "aiding the Confederacy," Benjamin Butler reversed his earlier policy of encouraging trade by refusing to confiscate cotton brought into New Orleans for sale.
47.
Always inventive of new terminology to achieve his ends, Benjamin Butler sequestered, or made vulnerable to confiscation, such "properties" in all of Louisiana beyond parishes surrounding New Orleans.
48.
On June 7,1862, Butler ordered the execution of William B Mumford for tearing down a United States flag placed by Admiral Farragut on the United States Mint in New Orleans.
49.
Benjamin Butler sought revenge against the more moderate Secretary of State Seward, whom he believed to be responsible for his eventual recall.
50.
Benjamin Butler continues to be a disliked and controversial figure in New Orleans and the rest of the South.
51.
On September 27,1862, Benjamin Butler formed the first African-American regiment in the US Army, the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, and commissioned 30 officers to command it at the company level.
52.
In January 1864, Benjamin Butler played a pivotal role in the creation of six regiments of US Volunteers recruited from among Confederate prisoners of war for duty on the western frontier.
53.
On November 4,1864, Benjamin Butler arrived in New York City with 3,500 troops of the Army of the James.
54.
Benjamin Butler awarded the Medal of Honor to several men of the 38th USCT.
55.
Benjamin Butler ordered a special medal designed and struck, which was awarded to 200 African-American soldiers who had served with distinction in the engagement.
56.
Lincoln had even asked Benjamin Butler to be the nominee for vice president.
57.
Benjamin Butler devised a scheme to breach the defenses with a boat loaded with gunpowder, which failed completely.
58.
At his hearing Benjamin Butler focused his defense on his actions at Fort Fisher.
59.
Benjamin Butler produced charts and duplicates of reports by subordinates to prove he had been right to call off his attack of Fort Fisher, despite orders from General Grant to the contrary.
60.
Benjamin Butler was formally retained until November 1865 with the idea that he might act as military prosecutor of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
61.
General Benjamin Butler claimed that Lincoln approached him in 1865, a few days before his assassination, to talk about reviving colonization in Panama.
62.
Negative perceptions of Benjamin Butler were compounded by his questionable financial dealings in several of his commands, as well as the activities of his brother Andrew, who acted as Benjamin Butler's financial proxy and was given "almost free rein" to engage in exploitative business deals and other "questionable activities" in New Orleans.
63.
Benjamin Butler used a Federal warship to send $60,000 in sugar to Boston where he expected to sell it for $160,000.
64.
Shortly after arriving in Norfolk, Benjamin Butler became surrounded by such men.
65.
Benjamin Butler designated subordinate George Johnston to manage the task.
66.
However, instead of being prosecuted, he was allowed to resign after saying he could show "that General Benjamin Butler was a partner in all [the controversial] transactions," along with the general's brother-in-law Fisher Hildreth.
67.
Much of the Benjamin Butler-managed Norfolk trade was via the Dismal Swamp Canal to six northeastern counties in North Carolina separated from the rest of the state by Albemarle Sound and the Chowan River.
68.
Benjamin Butler greatly expanded his business interests during and after the Civil War, and was extremely wealthy when he died, with an estimated net worth of $7 million.
69.
Benjamin Butler founded the Wamesit Power Company and the United States Cartridge Company, and was one of several high-profile investors who were deceived by Philip Arnold in the famous Diamond hoax of 1872.
70.
Benjamin Butler put some of his money into more charitable enterprises.
71.
Benjamin Butler purchased confiscated farms in the Norfolk, Virginia area during the war and turned them over to cooperative ventures managed by local African Americans, and sponsored a scholarship for African-Americans at Phillips Andover Academy.
72.
Benjamin Butler served for fifteen years in executive positions of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, including as its president from 1866 through 1879.
73.
At the urging of his wife, Benjamin Butler actively sought another political position in the Lincoln administration, but this effort came to an end with Lincoln's assassination in April 1865.
74.
Benjamin Butler argued that parole was merely a military arrangement that allowed a prisoner 'the privilege of partial liberty instead of close confinement.
75.
In March 1866, Benjamin Butler argued in the US Supreme Court on behalf of the United States in Ex parte Milligan, in which the Court held, against the United States, that military commission trials could not replace civilian trials when courts were open and where there was no war.
76.
Benjamin Butler supported a variety of populist and social reform positions, including women's suffrage, an eight-hour workday for federal employees, and the issuance of greenback currency.
77.
Benjamin Butler served four terms before failing to be reelected.
78.
Benjamin Butler was then elected in 1876 and served a single additional term.
79.
Benjamin Butler was an early and fierce supporter of impeaching President Johnson.
80.
In March 1867, Benjamin Butler unsuccessfully lobbied to be appointed to the House Committee on the Judiciary, which was overseeing the first impeachment inquiry against Andrew Johnson.
81.
John Bingham, who had worked to combat many of the early efforts to impeach Johnson, strongly opposed the prospect of Benjamin Butler being appointed to that committee.
82.
Benjamin Butler did so at the urging of Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the select committee who felt that Radical Republicans on the select committee were conceding too much to moderates in limiting the scope of the violations of law that the articles of impeachment the committee was drafting would charge Johnson with.
83.
Benjamin Butler was elected by the House serve as be one of the managers for the impeachment trial of Johnson before the Senate.
84.
Benjamin Butler led this investigation, approving summons for several eyewitnesses the same day that the investigation was authorized.
85.
Benjamin Butler looked into the possibility that four of the seven Republican Senators who voted for acquittal had been improperly influenced in their votes.
86.
Benjamin Butler published the final report of the investigation on July 3,1868, having failed to prove the alleged corruption that had been investigated.
87.
Benjamin Butler wrote the initial version of the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
88.
Benjamin Butler managed to rehabilitate his relationship with Ulysses Grant after the latter became president, to the point where he was seen as generally speaking for the president in the House.
89.
Benjamin Butler annoyed Massachusetts old-guard Republicans by convincing Grant to nominate one of his proteges to be collector of the Port of Boston, an important patronage position, and secured an exception for an ally, John B Sanborn, in legislation regulating the use of contractors by the Internal Revenue Service for the collection of tax debts.
90.
In 1871, Benjamin Butler sponsored an appearance by suffragette Victoria Woodhull before a congressional committee.
91.
Benjamin Butler made four unsuccessful attempts at being elected governor of Massachusetts between the years 1871 and 1879.
92.
Benjamin Butler again ran unsuccessfully for governor of Massachusetts in 1878, this time as an independent with Greenback Party support.
93.
Benjamin Butler as denied the Democratic nomination by the party's leadership, which refused to admit him into the party.
94.
In 1882, Benjamin Butler again ran for governor of Massachusetts, this time being elected by a 14,000 margin after winning nomination by both Greenbacks and an undivided Democratic party.
95.
Benjamin Butler appointed the state's first Irish-American and African-American George Lewis Ruffin judges, and appointed the first woman to executive office, Clara Barton, to head the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women.
96.
Benjamin Butler graphically exposed the mismanagement of the state's Tewksbury Almshouse under a succession of Republican governors.
97.
Benjamin Butler was somewhat notoriously snubbed by Harvard University, which traditionally granted honorary degrees to the state's governors.
98.
Benjamin Butler's honorarium was denied because the Board of Overseers, headed by Ebenezer Hoar, voted against it.
99.
Benjamin Butler is credited with beginning the tradition of the "lone walk", the ceremonial exit from the office of Governor of Massachusetts, after finishing his term in 1884.
100.
In 1882, Butler successfully litigated Juilliard v Greenman before the Supreme Court.
101.
Benjamin Butler was nominated by the Greenback and Anti-Monopoly parties, but was unsuccessful in getting the Democratic nomination, which went to Grover Cleveland.
102.
Benjamin Butler sought to gain electoral votes by engaging in fusion efforts with Democrats in some states and Republicans in others, in which he took what were perceived in the contemporary press as bribes $25,000 from the campaign of Republican James G Blaine.
103.
The effort was in vain: Benjamin Butler polled 175,000 out of 10 million votes cast in the election, which Cleveland won.
104.
Benjamin Butler's Book has 1,037 pages plus a 94-page appendix consisting of letters.
105.
Benjamin Butler died on January 11,1893, of complications from a bronchial infection, two days after arguing a case before the Supreme Court.
106.
Benjamin Butler is buried in his wife's family cemetery, behind the main Hildreth Cemetery in Lowell.