Benjamin F. Butler (1818-1893) was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, and died in Washington, D.C. He was a Union Army general in the Civil War, as well as a politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. As a trial lawyer, he was instrumental in reforming labor laws for factory workers in New England in the 1850s. He also played a major role in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. Butler served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1867-1875 and 1877-1879. As Chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, Butler authored the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and co-authored the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1875. He was elected governor of Massachusetts from 1883-1884. Mary Baker Eddy (then Patterson) wrote to Butler in 1861 about the war.

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