Benjamin F Butler Union Civil War General Massachusetts Signed Book Biography

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Benjamin F Butler Union Civil War General Massachusetts Signed Book Biography:
$164.99

Benjamin F Butler Union Civil War General Governor MA Signed Autograph Biogrpahy. Condition is Used. Shipped with USPS First Class Package.

Incredible signed copy of Benjamin F. Butlers autobiography. There are signed snippets and meaningless documents out there but this is his life’s work signed in his own hand! The book was signed in 1892, 128 years ago!!! The binding is in bad condition but the pages are good. This could be professionally repaired or left as is and handled carefully. Could also remove the signed page from the book but then it loses its context. Either way a great autograph from an important historical figure!!! Ships FREE, ASAP!!! Thanks

“As governor, Butler was active in promoting reform and competence in administration, in spite of a hostile Republican legislature and Governor\'s Council.[104] He appointed the state\'s first Irish-American and African-American judges,[83] and appointed the first woman to executive office, Clara Barton, to head the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women.”

“Although he sympathized with the South, Butler stated \"I was always a friend of southern rights but an enemy of southern wrongs\" and sought to serve in the Union Army.[18] His military career before the Civil War began as a private in the Lowell militia in 1840.[19] Butler eventually rose to become colonel of a regiment of primarily Irish American men. In 1855, the nativist Know Nothing Governor Henry J. Gardner disbanded Butler\'s militia, but Butler was elected brigadier general after the militia was reorganized. In 1857 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis appointed him to the Board of Visitors of West Point.[20] These positions did not give him any significant military experience”

“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. He helped create the legal idea of effectively freeing fugitive slaves by designating them as contraband of war in service of military objectives, which led to a political groundswell in the North which included general emancipation and the end of slavery as official war goals. His commands were marred by financial and logistical dealings across enemy lines, some of which probably took place with his knowledge and to his financial benefit.

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.

In Massachusetts, Butler was often at odds with more conservative members of the political establishment over matters of both style and substance. Feuds with Republican politicians led to his being denied several nominations for the governorship between 1858 and 1880. Returning to the Democratic fold, he won the governship in the 1882 election with Democratic and Greenback Party support. He ran for President on the Greenback ticket in 1884.”