BUTLER, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (181S-93). An American lawyer, politician, and general. He was born in Deerfield, N. H., November 5. 181S: graduated at Waterville College (now Colby University), Maine, in 1S3S; was ad mitted to the bar in 1840, and began at Low ell. Mass., a practice which soon became large and gave him a wide professional repute. He entered political life as a Democrat, was sent. in 1853 to the State Constitutional Conven tion and to the State Legislature, where he was instrumental in effecting the passage of a bill for reducing the hours of labor in factories from thirteen to eleven, and in 1S59 was elected to the State Senate. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention at Charleston. S. C., in 1860, and to the subsequent convention at Baltimore. and was among those who with drew from the latter. ht the same year he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Mas sachusetts. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he was a brigadier-general of the State militia. After taking possession of Annapolis lie occupied Baltimore without opposition, and in May, MI, was made a major-general of volunteers and put in command of the Depart ment of Eastern Virginia, with headquarters at Fortress Monroe. While here he refused to surrender fugitive slaves who penetrated his lines, and in this connection issued his famous order designating slaves as 'contraband of war.' After taking some part in the operations against the coast forts of North Carolina, he was sent, in the following spring, to Ship Island and up the Mississippi. When the expedition against New tirleans was organized he was placed in com mand of the troops, and on May 1, 1862, after Farragut had run by Forts Jackson and Saint Philip, and had destroyed the Confederate fleet, Butler took possession of New Orleans, and in stituted a vigorous administration which, though characterized by great ability and for the most part by good judgment, was warmly criticised. Especial notoriety attached to his "Order No. 28." issued after considerable provo cation, in which he directed that any woman who should publicly insult United States offi cers should be "regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avo cation." The order aroused the intense anger of the South, and, for this and other acts dur ing his administration, President Jefferson Davis in December ordered by proclamation that Butler should be considered as a felon and an outlaw, and if captured should instantly be hanged. Butler's order also caused much indigna
tion abroad, and especially in England, and for some time threatened seriously to eompromise the relations between the British and American Governments. Butler was relieved from his post by Gen. N. P. Banks (q.v.), in December, 1862. and toward the close of 1863 was made commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, in which capacity, after being hemmed in for some time at, Bermuda Hundred (q.v.), he cooperated in Grant's general move ment against Petersburg. In October, 1864, he was temporarily put in command at. New York City, in view of anticipated disturbances dur ing the approaching election, and in the follow ing December commanded an expedition against Fort Fisher. His conduct during this move ment led to his removal by Grant, whose orders he had disregarded, and to the ending of his military career. Devoting himself thereafter to law and politics, he was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1866. remained a member during ten of the following twelve years, took an active part in the debates over the various Reconstruction measures, and was one of the seven managers. for the House, of the impeach ment trial of President Andrew Johnson. In 1871 he was the Republican nominee for Gov ernor of Massachusetts, but was defeated. Hav ing left the Republican Party and allied himself with the Greenback and Labor movement, he be came an independent Democratic candidate for Governor in 1S78, and again in 1879, but was each time defeated. Ile acted regularly with the Democrats in the campaign of 1880, and was finally elected Governor by that party in 1882. In the following year lie was defeated for the same office, and in 1884, refusing to be bound by the action of the Democratic National Con vention, of which he had been a member, he ac cepted a Presidential nomination from the Greenback-Labo• and Anti-Monopolist parties; but was defeated in the ensuing election. lie died suddenly at Washington, January 11, 1893. Ile published The Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General B. P. Butler: Butler's Book (1892). Consult: Parton, But ler in New Orleans (New York, 1863) ; and Bland, Life of Benjamin P. Butler (Boston, 1879).