Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Butler, Benjamin Franklin
BUTLER, Benjamin Franklin, born at Deerfield, New Hampshire, Nov. 5, 1818. He graduated at Waterville College in 1838, and in 1841 commenced the practice of law at Lowell, Massachusetts. He early took a prominent part in politics on the Democratic side, and in 1853 was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and in 1859 to the State Senate. In 1860 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention, which met at Charleston, South Carolina. The Convention broke up without making any nomination for the Presidency, and when a portion of the delegates reassembled at Baltimore, Mr. Butler announced that a majority of the delegates from Massachusetts would take no further part in the proceedings of the Convention, for the reason, among others, that they "would not sit in a Convention in which the slave trade, which by law was piracy, was advocated." In that year he was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. He had before held a commission as Brigadier-General of Militia. On April 17, 1861, he marched to Annapolis, Maryland, with his regiment, and was soon afterwards placed in command at Baltimore, and subsequently at Fortress Monroe. While here, some slaves who had come within his lines were demanded by their masters. He refused to deliver them up, on the ground that they were "contraband of war;" whence originated the term "contrabands," by which slaves were frequently designated during the civil war. Early in Feb., 1862, a combined naval and military attack upon New Orleans was planned, Butler to command the land force. The naval force, under Farragut, passed the forts below, and were virtually in possession of the city on May 1, when the troops came up, and Butler took formal possession, and governed there with great vigour until November, when he was recalled. Late in 1863 he was placed in command of the department of Virginia and North Carolina, and the forces here were designated the army of the James. When General Grant was moving towards Richmond in July, 1864, Butler made an unsuccessful effort to capture Petersburg. In Dec., 1864, he made an ineffectual attempt upon Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina, and was then relieved of his command. In 1866 he was elected to Congress by the Republicans of Massachusetts, and he has been repeatedly reelected until 1878. In 1871 and in 1873 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of Massachusetts. In 1877 he left the Republican party to re-enter that of the Democrats, and was their candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 1878 and 1879, but was defeated. Again their nominee in 1882, he was successful in the general Democratic victory of that year.