Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician, 1818)

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Benjamin Franklin Butler
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Benjamin Franklin Butler (born November 5, 1818 in Deerfield , Rockingham County , New Hampshire , †  January 11, 1893 in Washington, DC ) was an American lawyer , politician and general in the United States Army during the Civil War .

Youth and political advancement

Butler studied in Maine law and became 1840 in Lowell (Massachusetts) as a lawyer admitted where he could make quickly made a name as a defense lawyer. He joined the Democratic Party and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1853 and the Massachusetts Senate in 1859 . In 1848, 1852, 1856 and 1860 he was a delegate at the nomination party convention for the Democratic presidential candidate ( Democratic National Convention ) . He was one of the few representatives from the Northern States who voted for Jefferson Davis and later for John C. Breckinridge as presidential candidate in 1860 , that is, for the representatives of the slavery-friendly wing of the party. Most of the delegates from the north voted for Stephen A. Douglas . Ultimately, both Breckinridge and Douglas ran for elections, which split the votes cast for the Democrats and gave Republican Abraham Lincoln victory. When the southern states then declared their exit from the Union, Butler took the view that such a split should be prevented by force if necessary.

Civil War General

Butler was the 1855 Brigadier General militia of Massachusetts . He was commissioned by Governor John Albion Andrew to advance with a brigade through pro-secession Maryland to Washington, which seemed threatened by the Confederate sympathizers of Maryland. Butler landed in Annapolis by ship on April 20, 1861 . He had the interrupted railway connection between the north and the federal capital restored and occupied Baltimore on May 13 , where Confederation sympathizers had fired on marching Union troops on April 19. Butler proclaimed martial law and arrested the mayor, councilors, and the chief of police. His crackdown impressed Lincoln and the federal government, which on May 16 appointed him first major general of the volunteer army .

In May Butler was given command of the Virginia defense area - due to the lack of occupied territory, the defense area only included the headland around Fort Monroe - and immediately embarked there. In the battle at Big Bethel , one of the first combat operations of the war, the troops under his command were defeated. In return, he managed to capture Fort Hatteras on the North Carolina coast in August . Butler's decision to deny the owners of runaway slaves who had fought their way to the lines of the Union Army, any claim to the refugees, became famous.

End of 1861 began Butler with preparations for amphibious operation in the Gulf of Mexico , the securing of the Mississippi mouth and taking New Orleans ( Louisiana had) to the destination. After the accompanying fleet under David Farragut had broken through the enemy coastal defenses, Butler's soldiers moved into the largest city of the Confederation on May 1 without a fight. Here, too, his draconian measures made him unpopular with the population. So he put women of the upper class, who spat at, insulted or mocked the Union troops, by means of the "General Order No. 28 “Lower class women and prostitutes alike, and hung a citizen who had brought down and torn a US flag. The southern government threatened Butler with the death penalty if he fell into their hands. Nicknamed the Beast and Spoons by residents of New Orleans , a nod to the rumor that Butler took silver cutlery from the homes of wealthy secessionists. The Washington government was finally forced to recall Butler from Louisiana in late 1862.

At the end of 1863 Butler was again given command on the coast of Virginia. As Commander in Chief of the James Army , he was supposed to threaten the Confederate capital Richmond and the strategically important Petersburg during the overland campaign in the spring of 1864 , but was badly beaten by General Beauregard's Confederate troops in the battle of Proctors Creek and for a long time on the Bermuda peninsula Hundred included.

Many of his superiors were not convinced of his military capabilities. This is how Major General Halleck wrote in 1864, at the time Chief of Staff of the American Army:

"It seems but little than murder to give important commands to such men as Banks, Butler, ..."

"It almost borders on murder to give important commands to men like Banks, Butler, ..."

His attempt to capture the Confederate fortress of Fort Fisher near Wilmington (North Carolina) towards the end of the year also failed. Butler was finally relieved of his command in early January 1865 and was no longer used until the end of the war.

Post-war political career

Butler had since joined the Republican Party and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1867 , to which he belonged until 1879 with one interruption. Here he was a staunch opponent of President Andrew Johnson and advocated his impeachment . For a time he was chairman of the legal policy committee. In 1871 he supported Victoria Woodhull in her presidential candidacy and played a leading role in the Ku Klux Klan Act to contain the terrorist acts of the Klan. After several unsuccessful candidacies, he was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1882 with the support of the Democrats. In the US presidential election in 1884 he ran as a candidate for the Greenback Party and the Anti-Monopoly Party for the office of President of the United States. After his death in Washington on January 11, 1893, Butler was buried in the family grave of his wife Sarah in Lowell. The civil war general and politician Adelbert Ames was his son-in-law.

Web links

Commons : Benjamin Franklin Butler  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Benjamin Franklin Butler: Butler's book. Autobiography and personal reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler . AM Thayer, Boston 1892, LCCN  07-014144 , Chapter X: The Woman Order, Mumford's execution, etc. , pp. 414–453 ( perseus.tufts.edu [accessed April 5, 2014]).
  2. ↑ The War of the Rebellion. A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies . tape  34 , series 1, part III. Govt. Print. Off., Washington 1891, LCCN  03-003452 , Chapter XLVI: Correspondence, etc.-Union. , S. 333 ( ehistory.osu.edu ( memento from June 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed April 5, 2014]).
personal data
SURNAME Butler, Benjamin Franklin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, politician and general in the United States Army in the Civil War
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Deerfield , Rockingham County, New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 1893
Place of death Washington, DC