Published by F. & J. Rives & Geo. A. Bailey, 1868.  6 pp., 9.5 x 6.5. Exhibits light chipping at the margins. Else VG [despite the printer’s error of numbering it at 8 pages instead of 6] Autograph card in ink measures 3.5” x 1.375.

Heading into the impeachment proceedings against president Johnson for violation of the Tenure of Office Act, Massachusetts Representative Ben Butler had earlier been the most notoriously agile of political generals of the American Civil War. Shifting his allegiance as a pre-war pro-slavery Democrat to the Radical wing of Republican party during the fighting...Butler  finagled his way to becoming the ranking volunteer Major General on the Union side. Under a later cloud for shady dealings in contraband cotton while serving as Military Governor of Louisiana early in the war, he near the end he was dismissed from the army by US Grant for bungling the initial assault on Fort Fisher, NC, in December 1864...just as he had bungled things commanding the Army of the James at Bermuda hundred earlier that year.

Delivering this speech as a member of the House of Representatives prosecution team, Butler puts on a fine display of bombast that will fail in the end….Johnson escaping impeachment by one vote.

Excellent piece of post-war Reconstruction-era political memorabilia. In protective sleeve w/ card backing.  [JP][ph:L]

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