Happy Birthday Ben Butler
Posted by Marie on 04 Nov 2009 at 07:04 pm | Tagged as: Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell-2009, Presidency
Benjamin F. Butler was born on - November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day) 1818 in Deerfield, NH - but he made his mark from Lowell as a lawyer, Congressman and Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - a Major General in the Union Army and a candidate for President in 1884.
He was both revered and reviled throughout his political and public life. He was often the ridiculed subject of political cartoons - particularly those of Thomas Nast. He was unconventional and colorful - hated in New Orleans for his General Order #28 - known as the “Woman Order”. Yet in Massachusetts he promoted labor reform, “woman sufferage” and as a lawyer he regularly and unconventionally represented the Irish of Lowell as clients. Later in life he was an owner of the Massachusetts Mills and he founded the U.S. Bunting Company for the express purpose of making American flags from American-made bunting and not British. He founded the U.S. Cartridge Shop to supply ammunition to the US government and the US Armed Forces. There are countless biographies of Butler and his autobiography “Butler’s Book” available in local libraries and on-line. A bust of Butler has recently been relocated and installed in the Lowell Memorial Auditorium’s Hall of Flags. The bust was a gift to the City of Lowell in 1891 on behalf of the Colored Citizens of Boston noting:
THE PRESENTATION OF A BUST OF GENERAL B. F. BUTLER
BY A DELEGATION OF COLORED CITIZENS FROM BOSTON -.
MR. DANDRIDGE’S REMARKS.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen:—In September, 1891, a
number of colored gentlemen of Boston decided to present to the
City of Lowell, or some one of its public institutions, a bust of
Gen. Benj. F. Butler. By such a testimonial they wished to express
their love and admiration for one of the very few men who, in all
the political changes so characteristic of our American life, has ever
been loyal and true to their interests.
We are not unmindful of the courage it took to denounce, in a
convention of slaveholders, of which he was a member, the iniquitv
of slavery and the slave trade. By the expedient of a definition— ”
contraband of war”—he solved the vexed question of the negro’s
right to don the uniform of an American soldier and fight bravely,
as he did, for his own freedom and the life of the Union.
At New Orleans he found regiments of colored troops that had
been organized by the Confederates to take up arms against the
Union. With him it was fair warfare to turn the enemy’s guns
against him, and the Corps d’Afrique was mustered into the Union
army and never disgraced the Flag, but fought their former masters
on many a blood-stained battle field and gallantly earned their right
to freedom.
We fully believe he did not favor us because we were colored,
but being so conditioned as to be unable to help ourselves, his mind
was strong enough, his heart was large enough, to take us in as
members of the great human family.
Mr. Mayor, the colored citizens of Boston are happy in presenting
this bust of Gen. Butler to the City of Lowell, believing there
could be no more appropriate place for it than in this hall, dedicated
to the memory of those who gave their lives that the Union might
be preserved, and all men made free and equal under the law.
Note: The Lowell Historical Society has just added to its extensive Butler Cartoon and Prints collection by acquiring the A. L. Eno cartoon collection. The samples below are from the original LHS collection.
”The ‘Busted’ side-show” published in Puck.
”The Cradle of Liberty in Danger” published in Harper’s Weekly(1874).
Friendly admendment.
In 1832, Butler was a member of Lowell High School’s first class. He then went to Colby College, Waterville, Maine to become a minister (can you imagine), it was not a good fit so he left, returned to Lowell and studied law. In the 1840s, Butler built up the largest law practice in New England and in 1851 puchased the financialy stressed Middlesex Company (woolen textile mill).
In 1883, as Massachusetts Governor, Butler appointed the first African-American Judge, not only in Massachusetts but in all the Northern States, George Lewis Ruffin (1834–1886).
http://www.masshist.org/longroad/03participation/profiles/ruffin.htm
As Governor, he also appointed the first Irish Catholic Judge, Matthew J. McCafferty.
And the first woman to executive office, Clara Barton, as head of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women.
As always Martha - I bow to your knowledge of Butler and all things Lowell. I accept your friendly amendment.
As always, a nice job.
I always associate Clara Barton with the Red Cross so I googled her and this shows up as her connection to Butler also:
For 3 years she followed army operations throughout the Virginia theater and in the Charleston, S.C., area. Her work in Fredericksburg, Va., hospitals, caring for the casualties from the Battle of the Wilderness, and nursing work at Bermuda Hundred attracted national notice. At this time she formed her only formal Civil War connection with any organization when she served as superintendent of nurses in Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butlers command.
My favorite Butler quote is from his remarks at Lowell’s semi-centennial festivities in 1876 (50 years after the founding of the town of Lowell in 1826). Taking a harsh view of the wealthy mill owners and investors from outside the city who had reaped the financial benefits of the high-yielding years, he said: “Our city has been a hive of industry, and, as a rule, the honey has been gathered by others.” Robert Dalzell later documented this charge in his 1987 book “Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made.”
If I remember correctly Butler supported the right of women to vote for School Committee ( and nothing else)
At the Woman Sufferage Convention held in Boston in 1871 there was a resolution to thnak the Hon. B.F. Butler for his Congressional report in favor of a woman’s right to vote. I found this reference to the amendment Butler supported her at: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/nineteenthcong.html
I didn’t find a restriction from Butler to women voting only for school committee.
The subject of woman sufferage is a fascinating one - full of stops and starts and many seemingly contradictory positions. Remember some woman thought that their political power was stronger when behind the scenes rather up front as voters!
Just more friendly info about his family life and his death:
He married Sarah Hildreth May 15, 1844 at St. Anne’s Church in Lowell. They had 4 children. Paul the oldest who died in April 1850, Blanche who went on to marry Gen Albert Ames, Paul born in 1852 who became a businessman after Harvard, and Ben Israel born in 1854 who died in 1881 on the very day he was to be his father’s law partner in Boston.
Sarah died in 1877. They are buried together in the Hildreth Family Cemetery originally in Lowell but now in Dracut.
The Clara Barton and Ben Butler story started on April 17, if not before. After the Massachusetts 6th Regiment arrived in Washington, DC on the train from Baltimore carrying their dead and wounded from the attack by Baltimore citizens, Butler who was already in DC arranged for his regiment to be barracked (word?) in the Capitol Building. One of the first to arrive to help who her fellow Massachusetts citizens, was Clara Barton who was working in the Patent Office in DC. In response to the dead, dying, and wounded she raced back to her boardinghouse and gathered blankets, bandages, and food. Thus she entered who new career.
Although, most think of Clara Barton in terms of nursing and the Red Cross, in fact she was really the first female supply officer and was amazing at her job. She raised lots of money for suppplies and then personally made sure they got to Union troops she served, on the field under gunfire if necessary.
At the end of the Civil War, Clara asked to taken on the gruesome task of identify thousands of dead union soldiers at Andersonville Prison and notifing their familes.
And Butler Ames his grandson, was the congressman before John Jacob Rogers and then Edith Nourse Rogers. History runs deep….