Her books on the Civil War-era include Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War (1994); All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies (1999); Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War (2004); Men of Color to Arms! Black Soldiers, Indian Wars, and the Quest for Equality (2010); and Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky (2011), which was named co-winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize in 2012.
Leonard applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life, and reported the following:
Readers who turn to page 99 will find themselves mired in General Benjamin Butler’s spring 1862 struggle, while commanding the Union occupation of New Orleans, over how to manage the many runaways from slavery who were seeking protection from his forces and, ultimately, freedom. Through their impressive channels of long-distance communication, many of Louisiana’s enslaved had no doubt learned of Butler’s “contraband policy,” established in May 1861 at Fort Monroe, Virginia. There, Butler had responded to a similar request for protection from escapees Sheppard Mallory, James Townsend, and Frank Baker, whose “owners” were committed rebels. Absent any directives on the future of slavery from President Lincoln, the U.S. Congress, or the War Department, Butler had refused to surrender the bondsmen, asserting that Virginia’s secession had removed it from the authority of the federal Fugitive Slave Act. Hundreds of enslaved Virginians quickly took note and took flight, and Lincoln and the War Department allowed Butler’s “contraband policy” to go forward without obstruction. That summer, Congress also passed the First Confiscation Act.Follow Elizabeth D. Leonard on Twitter.
Now, a year later and over a thousand miles to the southwest, the challenge Butler faced may have appeared, to some, the same on its surface as the one he had faced in Virginia, but it had important distinctions. For one thing, unlike in Virginia, Louisiana’s runaways were absconding from fiercely rebellious White owners as well as, at least in some cases, from loyal Unionists, whose continuing allegiance to the United States government Butler (and Lincoln) needed to preserve as a crucial piece of a Reconstruction effort now undergoing its initial testing. Moreover, Butler could not ignore the related personnel issue associated with his subordinate, General John W. Phelps, whose unequivocal abolitionism—decidedly more advanced for the moment than Butler’s own views on slavery—threatened the chain of command. Meanwhile, although Congress had passed the First Confiscation Act and was now pondering further action to undermine the slave institution, Butler well knew that Lincoln had immediately rescinded General David Hunter’s recent order freeing all enslaved people in the area under his command. So, what to do?
This is the question, the dilemma, confronting Butler, and readers, on page 99. Learning how he analyzed and resolved it reveals key features of Butler’s character: his brilliant, principled, but flexible intellect; generous but also steely heart; shrewd and vivid sense of humor; and capacity for personal reflection and development.
--Marshal Zeringue
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