Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was a major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer and businessman from Massachusetts. Civil War envelope showing fugitive slaves working as sappers and miners with General Benjamin Butler, bearing message "Contraband of war". The Contraband Historical Society seeks to get in touch with descendants of the “contrabands” – the enslaved people who escaped from bondage in the early years of the Civil War, protected by the U.S. Army under the legal doctrine of “contraband of war.” These were the people who, during the war, founded many of the early free African-American communities that survive to this day. Major General Benjamin F. Butler was a Massachusetts lawyer, abolitionist, former state senator, and Democrat. Library of Congress. General Butler has had the credit of first pronouncing the opinion formulating the doctrine, that under the course of international law the negro slaves, whose enforced labor in battery building was at the time of superior military value to the rebels, are manifestly contraband of war, and as such confiscable by military right and usage. No one wanted war; that much is certain. Ben Butler really didn't care that he was a bad general; he was a good politician, and knew that he had to be a general to have the sort of post-war career he wanted. They were being kept as contraband of war. General "First to declare slaves ""contraband"" of war, Butler caused great controversy when he issued his famous ""Woman's Order"" in New Orleans." IN THE FIRST WEEKS of the American Civil War, a lawyer turned general waged a bloodless legal battle for the North that altered the nature of the war. He worked as a lawyer in Massachusetts for about 15 years before the war, acquiring friends as well as enemies. Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was a major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer and businessman from Massachusetts.Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best known as a political major general of the Union Army during the American Civil War, and for his leadership role in the impeachment of U.S. President Andrew Johnson. ... has a new post up on Union General Benjamin Franklin Butler. Butler refused, issuing a statement that he considered the slaves to be "contraband of war". BENJAMIN BUTLER'S REPORT ON THE CONTRABANDS OF WAR (1861, by Benjamin Butler)In May 1861, three slaves who had been building Confederate fortifications slipped across rebel lines to General Benjamin Franklin Butler's position at Fort Monroe, Virginia.