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Butler (BENJAMIN FRANKLIN an American)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, an American lawyer and soldier, born in Deerfield, N. H., Nov. 5, 1818; 1818: studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1841, and became distinguished as a criminal lawyer and politician. He was a member of the State Legislature in 1853, of the State Senate in 1859-1860, and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention of 1860, which met at Charleston and adjourned to Baltimore.

He supported the nomination of John C.

Breckenridge, which rendered him so unpopular in the North that he was defeated for Governor of Massachusetts in that year. Butler had risen to the rank of Brigadier-General of militia; and, at the outbreak of the Civil War, he marched with the 8th Massachusetts Regiment, and, after a check at Big Bethel, was appointed to the command of Baltimore and of eastern Virginia, with his headquarters at Fort Monroe.

In February, 1862, he commanded the military forces sent from Boston to Ship Island, near the mouth of the Mississippi; and, after New Orleans had surrendered to the naval forces under Farragut, he held military possession of the city. Relieved of his command, he acted under Gen. Grant in his operations against Petersburg and Richmond in 1865. Returning to Massachusetts at the end of the war, he took an active part in politics as an extreme radical, advocated the impeachment of President Johnson, and in 1866-1875 was a member of Congress. In 1877 and 1879 he was defeated as candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, but in 1882 was elected by a large majority. In 1884 he ran for the Presidency as the candidate of the Greenback and Anti-Monopolist parties, but was defeated, carrying no State. He published "The Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Maj. Gen. Benja- BUTLER BUTTER min F. Butler" (1892). He died in the first part in 1663, he spent 17 years Washington, D. C., Jan. 11, 1893.