Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life

“Butler’s toothpick” is the somewhat derisive nickname given to the maritime navigational tower on the Salisbury coast named after lawyer, Civil War general, US congressman, and Massachusetts governor Benjamin Franklin Butler. In her new biography of Butler, historian Elizabeth Leonard explains how and why Butler’s name has been tangled for so long with disdainful epithets, most famously, “Beast Butler,” a nickname derived from his martial governance of New Orleans during the Civil War. Leonard presents a fuller, fairer, and more nuanced portrait of Butler, tracing his rise from an impoverished childhood to a successful legal practice, including his advocacy for the rights of Lowell Mill girls; to a US Army general sternly enforcing federal authority and advancing wartime emancipation measures; to an accomplished political career in both Washington and Massachusetts, in the course of which he consistently used his influence to advocate for Black American freedom and civil rights and to oppose the neo-Confederate resurgence and white nationalism. In this talk, Leonard will present the case for Butler's rehabilitation. Elizabeth D. Leonard is Colby College's Gibson Professor of History, Emerita. She earned her Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of California, Riverside, in 1992 and is the author of several articles and seven books on the Civil War-era including: Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War; All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies; and Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky, which was named co-winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize in 2012.