Oval chest-up view of Butler. This is a lithograph/engraving done in CDV format and mounted in a paper photograph sleeve. In this image Butler wears a double-breasted coat with general’s shoulder epaulettes. Image is clear with good detail. No backmark visible.

Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was a major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer and businessman from Massachusetts.

Butler, a successful trial lawyer, served in the Massachusetts legislature as an antiwar Democrat and as an officer in the state militia. Early in the Civil War he joined the Union Army, where he was noted for his lack of military skill, and his controversial command of New Orleans, which brought him wide dislike in the South and the "Beast" epithet.

Butler was dismissed from the Union Army after his failures in the First Battle of Fort Fisher, but soon won election to the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts. As a Radical Republican he opposed President Johnson's Reconstruction agenda, and was the House's lead manager in the Johnson impeachment proceedings. As Chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, Butler authored the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and coauthored the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Butler died on January 11, 1893 of complications from a bronchial infection a day after arguing a case before the Supreme Court. He is buried in his wife's family cemetery, behind the main Hildreth Cemetery in Lowell.

This image was part of the Ray Ritchie collection. [jet] [ph:L]

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