The Union League and Biracial Politics in Reconstruction Texas by Carl H. Moneyhon (review)

Abstract

Finally, Leonard counters critiques of Butler’s often-maligned military leadership by emphasizing Butler’s talents as an administrator. In addition to establishing order in captured Baltimore and New Orleans, Butler set up social programs throughout his military career. At Fort Monroe, Ship Island, and New Orleans, for example, he set up toilets and sanitation systems to maintain the health of soldiers and civilians. He also established social services for needy civilians that included food distribution and work programs as well as education programs to assist those who were struggling. These programs extended to Black contrabands in Fort Monroe and to poor whites and Blacks in New Orleans. Throughout this gracefully written book Leonard braids together Butler’s life with both national and local context. She weaves his family into his military and political career. The result is a biography that rescues a widely vilified Civil War general from the distortions that began in the 1860s. Instead of focusing on the Lost Cause characterizations of him as a “Beast,” scholars should recognize his tireless advocacy for women’s and African Americans’ rights. Butler should be remembered as one of his eulogists did, as a man who fought “against power, against wealth, against station” and who would be “cherished by the sons of poverty; by the oppressed, the friendless, the unfortunate of every type” (279). Lisa Tendrich Frank Independent Scholar