I am at the Civil War Institute in Gettysburg this weekend. I’ll try to give a little look at what is going on here. There are leading experts on the Civil War and Reconstruction here lecturing an audience of four hundred history enthusiasts. The first lecture was delivered by Elizabeth Leonard, whose book
General Benjamin Butler was, by the time of the Civil War, respected by many people who knew him, but, according to Professor Leonard, “he was reviled by his enemies, including lawyers he had brilliantly argued against and beaten, mill owners whose oppressive rules and regulations he tirelessly contested, and various Massachusetts’ elites who considered him an interloper on their terrain.” This was a theme that would run throughout the remainder of his life, says Leonard.
Butler worked his way up from poverty to wealth, but his identity was always with the working class. This did not, before the war, ever lead him to identify with Blacks held in slavery. Butler held himself an ally of the poor, the immigrant, those members of persecuted religious creeds, but in 1860 at the Democratic National Convention, he cast his vote for Jeff Davis!
While Butler was not on the side of the Abolitionists before 1862, he did take a heroic stand against the anti-immigrant Know Nothings. His state had one of the most powerful Know Nothing organizations in the country, but he fought against them at every turn. Leonard said that he was referred to by his enemies as “The Irishmen’s Napoleon.” This was not a title he would have been ashamed of.
Leonard said that both before the war and after the war, Butler “ruffled a lot of feathers, which he might have gotten a Ph.D. in.” Before the war, Butler was an officer in the state militia. When the Know Nothing governor ordered him to disband an Irish company, Butler said “No.” The governor removed Butler from command, but his officers then elected him to command them again.
Butler was turned to after Fort Sumter to mobilize Democrats to support the Union. Both Massachusetts’ governor John Andrew and Abraham Lincoln looked to him as an important ally from the other side in fighting against the Confederacy. He used his political skill to quiet Baltimore down in the early days of the Civil War. Even though he never opposed slavery during the 1850s, he was the general who classified slaves who sought shelter withing his lines as “contrabands” that the army could free from slavery. In New Orleans, he occupied the city in 1862 and used his political experience handing out public works to immigrants and Free Man of Color to gain their support for the Union.
After the war, Butler was an outspoken proponent of equal rights for African Americans. He fought for the 14th and 15th Amendments and he led the effort to impeach President Andrew Johnson who refused to recognize the equality of People of Color. He also supported his son-in-law Adelbert Ames, who became governor of Mississippi and fought for Black voting rights.
“His principles grew and changed as the war and the world changed,” says Professor Leonard.
Photo: Elizabeth Leonard speaking at the Civil War Institute on June 6, 2024. Photo taken by Pat Young.
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