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FREE FRANKED COVER HANDWRITTEN BY BEN BUTLER

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Letter envelope with "free franked" postage by Butler's signature. Empty letter envelope addressed to someone in Maine. The right to send mail free of postage is commonly referred to as a "free franking" privilege, with the frank being a signature denoting such right. In the United States, the franking privilege predates the establishment of the republic itself, as the Continental Congress bestowed it on its members in 1775. Postmark over portion of signature.

Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Massachusetts, Butler was a politically appointed major general of the Union Army during the Civil War and had a role in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

Butler joined the Union Army, where his lack of military skill was evident time and again. His controversial military governing of New Orleans made him widely disliked in the South and earned him the "Beast" epithet. Butler came up with the idea of designating freed slaves as "contraband of war," an idea that the Lincoln administration endorsed and that played a role in making emancipation an official war goal.

After the war, Butler continued to be very active in State and National politics. Butler died on January 11, 1893, of complications from a bronchial infection, two days after arguing a case before the Supreme Court. He is buried in his wife's family cemetery, behind the main Hildreth Cemetery in Lowell, MA.  [jet] [ph:L]

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