Connecticut western news., 1893-01-19

President Harrison's wreath was placed in the coffin at Washington. Senators l Dawes, Chandler and Hale Governor Rus | sell Hon. Frederick Douglass, militia com panies, societies and friends in Lowell, Boston, New York, Washington Chicago and other places sent pieces that took up l one side of the hall.
 Huntington hall, whenever General But Ter appeared there in life, saw turbulent | scenes but those of Sunday surpassed any l thing ever seen before. Down in the street | thousands pressed forward when they saw | the doors open. All the afternoon a steady stream of people poured in, but the crowds | that wanted to get in did not diminish. Hundreds left the place without getting in, | only to return and swell the crowds this | morning. The funeral of General Butler, | which occurs this afternoon, is the greatest event Lowell has ever seen. The militia, | the visiting dignitaries, Grand Army posts and about every local society will swell | the funeral procession to. enormous pro- | portions.
 | Sketch of His Life. Benjamin Franklin Butler figured in more characters than any other public man of this age. There have been several abler l generals, many more prominent statesmen, | as many more eloquent attorneys, though
 
 as adroit politicians. But no other man played so many parts as we'll, from the place of small lawyer to that of proconsul | in a captured city in the most delicate era and difficult situation of the civil war. As child Butler was very sickly and ir- | ritable He went on a long fishing voyage ! and got rid of all his troubles-except | tendency to irritation, say some of his crit | ics. He was indeed conductive from the start.
 In college he was half the time engaged | in a controversy with the faculty, and
 barely escaped expulsion; in politics he often bolted party lines, and in congress he | was perpetually in hot water. He reached | his maximum of greatness about 1866-78, and after 1884 was practically withdrawn | from the public view. Thus retired the most unique and versatile character that l ever appeared in American politics. Personally, an eulogist of Butler said of him: "He is thorough 'Yankee'-using that phrase in its most slangy as we'll as local and genealogical sense. Other men may be somewhat Yankee-he fills the bill | Like all intensely positive characters who | possess ability, he has been much admired, more feared and most intensely hated; but it cannot be thought that he was ever widely loved.
 | | he was fool. As to stock, it would be hard to find purer blooded Yankee The Buffers came to New England among the first, and Ben's grandfather, Captain Ze- | phaniah Butler fought under Wolfe at | Quebec and gained fame in the Revolution, | while his father, John, was a captain in | 1S12-15. His mother came of the Cilleys,
 a Scotch-Irish family, and the Cilley of | New Hamshire who was killed in the noted duel was a cousin of the general.". He was born at Deerfield, N. H., Nov. 5, | ISIS; was graduated from the Baptist col | lege at Waterville, Me, in 1888, and was in
 no long time admitted to practice at the
 bar; was married in 1S43 to Miss Hildreth, I and became a general of Massachusetts
 militia in 1860.
 l Buffers Military Career.
 It was in his capacity as an officer of the | Massachusetts militia that he entered the
 service of the United States, April Is, 1881. | On the 18th he started for Washington,
 and his experience at Annapolis, Md, from
 which his troops repaired the railway and
 locomotives and ran the latter, was one of | the most interesting and encouraging incl | dents of the time.
 | Gan you repair this enginef" he asked
 of Private Charles Romans, of the Eighth | Massachusetts.
 | guess SO, WAS Iut
 helped make it."
 Calling to his aid other machinists who
 had worked in the same shop, they soon had
 the locomotive in running order, and But
 ler's command entered Washington on the
 25th, exciting an enthusiasm of which no
 idea can be conveyed in words.
 May l3, 1861, General Butler took posses
 sion of Baltimore, finding the late turbu-
 lent city as quiet as Lowell, and three days
 later he was commissioned major general
 of volunteers commanding the department
 of caste n Virginia, with headquarters at | Fortress Monroe. There he issued the fa-
 nous order, or decision, that "as slaves are
 property in Virginia, fugitive slaves who
 enter our lines are contraband of war" and
 many year passed before the freedmen | ceased co be called "contrabands." The
 first movement ordered by him resulted in
 the repulse at Big Bethel which at that
 time was thought great disaster; but he
 soon regained prestige by aiding in the cap
 ture of Forts Hatteras and Clark, on the
 coast of North Carolina.
 March 23, 1862, the so called Butler ex-
 petition" reached and took possession of
 Ship island; April r it started up the Mis-
 sissippi and May l took formal possession
 of New Orleans. For the next twenty
 months General Butler was the most
 talked about and most thoroughly hated
 man in America. He has undoubtedly | HeAp thrnatened with auddeu daath uftnuAx