PHOTOS FROM GENERAL BEN BUTLER’S FUNERAL 1893

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Item Code: 490-6216

This group consists of two original period photographs of Gen. Ben Butler’s funeral cortege, taken on the spot, framed with a bust portrait of the general himself and a period display card in old ink reading, “Maj’ Gen B. F. Butler’s / Funeral Jan 16 / 1893 / at Lowell Mass / S.H. Smith.” They appear to be original photos that were in an older frame at some point for display and were more recently reframed and matted. They are in good condition, though a bit light from exposure when originally framed and displayed, likely in a local G.A.R. hall or historical society, likely in or near Lowell, where he had lived since a boy.

The photos of the large, horsedrawn hearse with escort marching on foot were clearly taken as it approached the photographer and passed by. One photo showing them coming up the snowy street from the photographer’s right and in the other the photographer has turned to his left to catch them as they have just passed by, showing the glass sides of the hearse and the large (black) plumes of mourning attached to the top of the hearse. People are visible in both images, watching the cortege pass from in front of their houses or along the side of the street. The escort marches in single file on either side of the hearse. They seem to wear sashes or sword baldrics across the shoulder. In the bust portrait, Butler is shows in civilian clothes, facing to the viewer’s right.

Butler (1818-1893,) as any student of the war will know, was a controversial politician, lawyer, businessman, and general, often mocked and derided, but not without political pull and some successes in seizing Annapolis, restoring communications with Washington, and keeping a lid on Baltimore and New Orleans after Federal forces took over, much to the wrath of local citizens with Confederate sympathies. He had his own way of getting things done- deciding not to contest overtly southern assertions of slaves as property, for instance, but then to effectively free them by declaring refugees who reached his lines as contraband, replying to slave owners that he had no responsibilities to a foreign country as Virginia claimed to be, or declaring that any woman of New Orleans showing contempt for U.S. soldiers would be regarded as “a woman of the street plying her avocation” which added “beast” to the epithets applied to him, as well as “spoons” in suggestions of theft and corruption. His ultimate lack of military success proved his undoing in the army, but he continued on with some political success as Governor, Congressman, and Senator.

Butler was a fascinating figure and is a collecting category of his own, with lots of satirical and some very outraged attacks on him in print and the visual arts in etchings by Volck, etc., and even hard goods, such as chamber pots with his image inside.     [sr][ph:L]

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