The House, the Beast, and the Bloody Shirt:The Doorkeeper Controversy of 1878

By: Ed Bradley (Harpweek, LLC)

On Friday, April 5, 1878, Benjamin F. Butler, a Republican from Massachusetts, arose in the U.S. House of Representatives and offered a resolution stating “that the true Union, maimed soldier, Brigadier-General James Shields” be chosen as doorkeeper of that body. Although a seemingly innocuous motion, Butler’s resolution would spark a debate over the election of a doorkeeper that would last into the following week. That debate&#151and the reactions to it&#151are in turn quite revealing of the political environment of the time. Specifically, the “doorkeeper controversy” of 1878 symbolizes the persistence of sectionalism in the immediate post-Reconstruction years. It also provides yet another example of the turmoil and controversy that characterized Ben Butler’s colorful political career.¹	1
The role of sectionalism in the political discourse of the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction years has been a subject of much dispute among historians. Writing on the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, Richard F. Bensel notes the “persistent impact of . . . sectional competition. . .in national political institutions,” particularly in the House of Representatives. Joel H. Silbey agrees, asserting that in the post-Civil War years “sectional tensions became incorporated into the partisan imperative.” Specifically, with the formation of the Solid South in the aftermath of the 1876 elections “sectionalism and partisan ship, intersected and came together within [the political] structure.” The Republican party thus continued to depend upon the bloody shirt long after the war was over, with Lewis Gould noting that in the post-Recon- struction years sectionalism was “a genuine and continuing source of Republican strength.”²	2
Yet other historians downplay the role of sectionalist rhetoric during these years. Thus Stanley P. Hirshson writes that while by 1878 “sectionalism was once again the official policy of a Republican administration,” succeeding years saw business interests and other forces work toward reconciliation and a subsequent de-emphasis on black civil rights. Morton Keller asserts that in the 1870s the emphasis both parties placed on organization came at the expense of sectionalist rhetoric and other party ideologies. In The Romance of Reunion, Nina Silber studies postwar culture and concludes that northern anger with southern slaveholders for causing the war was transformed into an appreciation of the south’s chivalric society, particularly as labor unrest, immigration, and black migration created a longing among many northerners for a less complex and more “traditional” culture. Through a process involving the romanticizing of southern society, antagonism between the two sections faded considerably.³	3
Sectional reconciliation is also emphasized in David Blight’s Race and Reunion, the most prominent recent work to consider this theme. In his prologue, Blight describes how “the forces of reconcilia tion overwhelmed the emancipationist vision in the national culture.” In other words, a strong desire for harmony between the sections was developed at the expense of the enforcement of black civil and political rights. Blight cites both cultural and political examples of reconcilia tion, including Memorial Day observations involving veterans from both sides, the presidential election of 1872 (which “spelled the final collapse of Republican radicalism”), the Depression of 1873-77, and L.Q.C. Lamar’s eulogy of Charles Sumner. With the compromise of 1877 and the end of the disputed 1876 presidential election “reconcilia tion seemed to sweep over the country’s political spirit.”⁴	4
Indeed, Blight and other like-minded historians provide considerable evidence that a wave of reconciliation swept the United States after 1865. Yet in examining the post-Reconstruction years, one sees that sectionalist rhetoric could still play a major role in the political discourse. The selection of a doorkeeper for the House of Representa tives in April 1878 is a strong illustration of this contention.	5
The controversy had its roots in the April 1878 dismissal of Democrat John W. Polk as doorkeeper. The House doorkeeper’s duties include enforcement of rules concerning the privileges of the House chamber, oversight of pages and doormen, and the announcement of visits to the chamber by the president of the United States and other prominent officials. Polk was ostensibly dismissed for his appointment of several unqualified applicants to House messenger positions that were reserved for disabled veterans, although partisanship and charges of drunkenness and gambling also played a role. The Polk controversy received considerable coverage in the press, and with the firing the Washington Post noted that the matter of filling the position became “the great question of national interest,” with “several dozen gentle men” being put forward to succeed him.⁵	6
Shields was among the more prominent of those gentlemen. Born in Ireland in 1806, he emigrated to the United States about twenty years later. Settling in Kaskaskia, Illinois, Shields was admitted to the bar and immersed himself in Democratic party politics, leading to his election to the state legislature in 1836 and his appointment to the state supreme court in 1843. Resigning from the latter post to accept a federal appointment under the Polk administration, Shields was commissioned brigadier-general early in the Mexican War. His performance at Cerro Gordo, where he was seriously wounded, earned him a brevet major-general rank and a citation from General Winfield Scott. Following the war, Shields was governor of the Oregon Territory and a U.S. senator from Illinois and Minnesota. After serving as a brigadier-general in the Civil War, he resumed his political career in Missouri as a state legislator after losing a controversial congressional election. By 1878, James Shields had led a peripatetic and intriguing political life.⁶	7
The intrigue would continue with his nomination as doorkeeper. In a speech supporting Shields’ nomination, Butler noted both the aged general’s wounds suffered in service of his country and his straitened financial status. Indeed, at the time Shields was supporting himself on a modest pension and lecturing, and it was even reported that he had pawned his swords. Butler also reminded his colleagues that federal law directed that in filling civil offices “a maimed soldier shall be pre ferred.” Responding to Butler’s comments, William R. Morrison (D-IL) noted that years earlier Republicans had denied Shields a seat in the House by successfully contesting the circumstances of his election. Morrison also asked why Shields had not been “preferred” for so many years until the present time. Picking up on this argument, Samuel S. Cox (D-NY) asserted that for years Republicans in the House had the dispensation of “more than ninety thousand offices, but they have never sought to honor this distinguished soldier until this little emergency when they seek to do it at our expense.”⁷	8
Many in the press echoed the comments of Morrison and Cox. The Washington Post noted that the only other time Butler ever had a chance to give Shields an office “he gave him a kick instead.” Others noted that Butler and his Republican colleagues had never supported giving the old general a pension, mainly because he was a Democrat. Instead, said the Memphis Daily Appeal, “for party purposes” they were now attempting to foist the “laborious office” of doorkeeper upon a man “they had cruelly neglected for twelve years.” Even the Republican New York Tribune speculated that if the Republicans were in control of the House they would have never nominated Shields. It was also rumored that Shields was not even interested in the position, a statement that was borne out by a letter from Shields to Butler. The general, after playfully commenting that Butler had “made an experiment with my poor name,” said that if he had been asked beforehand if he would accept the position he would have declined.⁸	9
Back in the House, the debate soon bogged down over the issue of whether Butler’s proposal to elect a new doorkeeper was a question of privilege. Eventually, the members voted to adjourn until Monday, but not before the series of exchanges had revealed what was to be the major theme of the controversy. Cox and his Democratic colleagues were implying that Butler and the Republicans were bringing up Shields in order to exploit lingering bitterness over the war. Clearly, if the Democrats in the House rejected Shields’ nomination, they would once again be portrayed as the anti-Union, pro-South party, and the Republi can party would benefit politically. Butler denied that he was using such “claptrap” tactics, and asserted that if Shields should be voted down, he would vote for “some honorable confederate soldier, with his leg off, who once showed his loyalty to the country by fighting in the Mexican War.” The resumption of debate on Monday would prove Butler’s denial to be a hollow one.⁹	10
In the meantime, it became clear over the weekend that Friday’s debate had caught the attention of political observers throughout the country. One Philadelphian telegraphed speaker of the House Samuel J. Randall (D-PA) on Friday and impatiently asked him for a prediction, while a writer for the Boston Globe noted on Monday that the door keeper question represented “the greatest manifestation this season of interest in Congressional proceedings.” That morning the House lobbies were abuzz with talk of the doorkeeper selection. Half an hour before the House convened the galleries were packed with spectators eagerly anticipating the renewal of debate, with an estimated 2,000 people turned away. It was all a little much for the Washington Post, whichexpressed its puzzlement that the office of doorkeeper “is not one-half as important as the position of a Superintendent of a Washington street- car line,” yet the nation was in “chronic hysterics” over the controversy. The Louisville Courier-Journal similarly wondered how “the filling of a petty office” could create more excitement in Washington than more weighty affairs such as the Pacific Railroad affair.¹⁰	11
Yet the doorkeeper imbroglio was the top news story over the weekend, and the resumption of debate on Monday led to what one observer called “a lively time in the House.” After voting that Butler’s resolution for a vote on doorkeeper was a point of privilege, that body began debate anew. The plot soon thickened when the Democratic side, which had caucused over the weekend, proposed Charles William Field as doorkeeper. A native Kentuckian and Confederate major-general, Field had suffered a severe hip wound at Second Bull Run, an injury from which he never fully recovered. Following the war, he dabbled in business before becoming colonel of engineers and inspector-general of the Egyptian army. Decorated by the khedive for his services, he returned to the United States in 1877 with a distinguished military career behind him. Press supporters of Field’s nomination praised him as “a gentleman of varied attainments, sound judgement and sterling integrity” whose life “has been one of varied, instructive, and ennobling experience.” In an interview with the Washington Post, Field expressed surprise at his nomination, adding that “I never had anything in all my life to gratify me so highly.”¹¹	12
Benjamin F. Butler, on the other hand, was hardly pleased with the nomination. For one, there was the question of Field’s service in Egypt. In its April 7 edition the Chicago Tribune noted that in serving under the khedive Field may have effectively renounced his American citizenship. In a similar vein, the librarian of the Senate wrote Butler that Field had until “quite recently” been a subject of the khedive and could hardly have been in the United States long enough to regain his citizenship, a circumstance that might “disqualify him for consideration for doorkeeper.” In Monday’s debate Butler picked up on these arguments, explaining that in serving in Egypt Field had been required to swear allegiance to the Sultan and to Mohammed, a treasonable act “for which he ought to have been hanged.” Responding to Butler, Eppa Hunton (D-WV) asserted that Field served in Egypt under a contract, not an oath of allegiance. Besides, the same contract he signed was also signed by four Union veteran officers, two of whom were still serving in the U.S. Army in April 1878. Would Butler want to hang them as well?¹²	13
Dropping this argument, Butler focused on the main reason for his opposition to the nomination of Field—the latter’s service in the Confederacy. Recalling the Hayes administration’s selection of Confederate veteran David M. Key as postmaster general, Butler regretted how “it seems that it is the desire of the House of Representa tives to nominate a man of the same antecedents for Doorkeeper.” While acknowledging Field’s military prowess during the late war, Butler asserted that his “meritorious services. . .were not done for my country, and therefore I cannot reward those services by electing him to office because he tried to destroy his country.” Democratic members of the House, he continued, were clearly making a mistake in proposing Field:	14
We are a little sore yet, some of us, up North. There are a great many green graves dotted all over our villages, the waving grass hardly grown over them yet. . .[With Decoration Day upcom ing,] do not send the sorrowing widows and weeping orphans to their fathers’ and husbands’ graves bowed down with the thought [that] their dear ones’ veteran comrade [Shields] is so soon by the Representatives of their government put behind one who led the armies of the rebellion in the battles of which their loved and mourned ones were slain, husbands and fathers all now sleeping in quiet graves. Do not press us so fast. . .the men of the North will march again before they will see their dead, dishonored and sterling veterans spurned.
In selecting a doorkeeper, Butler concluded, the House should “show that [we] prefer courage and brave conduct when shown on the battlefield in behalf of patriotism, loyalty to the flag, to the Govern ment, rather than the same traits devoted to treason and rebellion.”¹³
Responding to Butler’s harangue, Hiester Clymer (D-PA) cited the “arduous” duties of a doorkeeper and the poor health of Shields as arguments against the appointment. It would be appropriate, Clymer continued, instead to place Shields on the retired list of the U.S. Army, which would mean over $3,000 a year for life for the general. As for Butler’s waving of the bloody shirt, “I tell him that the red flag which he attempts to flaunt here in our eyes to-day has no terror for me or for the people I represent. With them, sir, the war is ended,” despite the attempts by any “agitator such as the gentleman from Massachusetts” to revive sectional hostility. Following Clymer, Samuel Cox likewise lamented Butler’s appeals:	15
The war is over. . .Are we never to [achieve] that peace which comes of concordant hearts—the peace that with some passeth understanding? Are we forever, sir, to debate and wrangle, to keep open the old wounds of the war? Are they forever to be kept green and bleeding? Or shall we not pour oil of healing and benefaction into the wounds?
As the destinies of the two sections, Cox concluded, are “one and inseparable, why may we not come together in a spirit of fraternity, the gray along with the blue?”¹⁴
Unmoved by Cox’s emotional appeal, Republican Eugene Hale of Maine noted the Democratic party’s “domination” by the “old confederate element.” As soon as the Democrats gained power, he predicted, they would use the patronage to install party workers who were offensive to the North. As an example, Hale pointed out that in the previous Congress,¹⁵ the Ways and Means committee assigned its clerkship to a man who named his child after John Wilkes Booth. Returning to the matter at hand, Hale echoed Butler in criticizing Field’s Confederate service. The Democratic party must decide whether or not they will permit “influences” within their party to award a place to a man “who deserted the flag. . .and whose only record and only strength with the democratic party is because of that fact.” Rather than chide Butler, Clymer and Cox should accept the fact that “this issue cannot and shall not be blinked. It is a thing that that party is responsible for, and it must take responsibility.”¹⁶	16
Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn (D-KY) took issue with Hale’s comments, denying that the Democrats of the House had ever raised the sectional issue except when acting in self-defense. “I despise the man,” he offered, “who seeks to make either personal profit or political capital” through use of the bloody shirt. “It is the part of ghouls and hyenas to delve into trenches whose bloody carcasses lie buried, and drag them out to batten and fatten upon the feast.” Sadly, in arguing for Shields’ appointment Butler and Hale were clearly “fighting over the war again.” Following Blackburn, John A. McMahon (D-OH), a nephew of noted Copperhead Clement L. Vallandigham, not only emphasized the Democratic party’s fidelity to the Union but also questioned the Republican party’s treatment of Union veterans. An 1865 law providing for the preferment of disabled Union veterans for civil offices had frequently been ignored, he insisted, and Republicans had been less than enthusiastic in their support for a bill concerning retroactive pensions.¹⁷ In contrast, the Democratic party “prefer[s] to err on the side of the soldier or his suffering family,” as “no reasonable measure for the relief of the Union soldier has ever suffered any damage at the hands of a democratic Congress.” McMahon then echoed earlier comments about the position of doorkeeper being too “insignificant” an office for a man of Shields’ accomplishments.¹⁸	17
Following McMahon’s rhetoric and some procedural wrangling, the doorkeeper appointment finally came up for a vote. Field was elected with 123 votes, compared to 101 for Shields and eight for John H. Trent of Tennessee. Immediately following Field’s election, a bill was read that would place Shields on the retired list. After some debate the bill was passed by a vote of 228-6, and “an exceedingly interesting” debate, as the New York Tribune phrased it, was ended. The debate among members and Washington observers continued out in the streets, with one correspondent writing that “we find on the pavements and in the hotels groups of men in animated talk over the occurrence of the day, resembling the scenes when important election returns are coming in.” Still, observed the New York Times, the “long agony” of the doorkeeper controversy was over, and after hours of debate over several days, a most curious incident in the annals of congressional history had finally ended. Looking back over the previous week, the April 11 edition of the Baltimore Sun predicted that Field would find serving as doorkeeper to be “harder work than leading the battalions of the khedive.” The Boston Globe added that with the controversy over, “the House is expected to settle down to important business, which is seriously behind hand.”¹⁹	18
The doorkeeper affair did reveal some “important business”: namely, the fact that sectionalism was alive and well in the political realm a full thirteen years after the war had ended. Indeed, Union veterans and their supporters, delighted with Butler’s nomination of Shields, expressed their lingering bitterness over the war in dozens of letters to the congressman. “I think it will cheer the ‘boys’ a little,” wrote one, “to find one man left in public life with pluck enough to call treason odious.” An “old soldier” congratulated Butler on having sent “a bigger shell in the rebel lines than has been exploded in their ranks since you hoisted the American flag. . .in New Orleans.” From New Jersey a female correspondent lamenting Field’s election cried that “I love my country and am deeply interested in its welfare, and my spirit rises in indignation when I think of those blood hounds, who would have destroyed it, having been placed in authority over loyal citizens.” Several correspondents were so outraged that they began to prepare for another war. A Springfield, Illinois resident noted that in preparing to take up arms he and “thousands” of others were “keeping posted in modern tactics,” while from Brooklyn a J. Hyatt Smith predicted that in the aftermath of the doorkeeper affair “the battle of the Union is to be fought over again!”²⁰	19
While not calling for war, many in the Republican press also framed their opposition to Field’s election in sectional terms. The Philadelphia Inquirer lamented that the doorkeeper position was awarded to a man who had been trained at West Point at his country’s expense and yet “proved traitor to her, and drew his sword on the side of those who struggled for years to destroy her.” Similarly, in a sarcastic editorial the Chicago Tribune noted that Shields was not chosen by a Democratic House because he “labor[s] under the disadvantage of never having fought to dissolve the Union.” Indeed, a number of journals interpreted the results of the doorkeeper debate as evidence that the Democratic leadership of the House was under the thumb of “rebel” interests. “The House of Representatives,” said the Troy (N.Y.) Times, “may fairly be regarded as given over to the domination of men who but a few short years ago were in open insurrection against the Government, with the avowed purpose of destroying it.” The Tribune agreed, asserting that Field’s election “demonstrated, as nothing else could have done, the complete supremacy of the Confederate element in the Democratic party.” To support such accusations, it was noted that the House Democratic caucus selected Field as its candidate after the Democrat Shields had already been nominated. In addition, William M. Springer of Illinois was the only Democrat who did not vote for Field. Clearly, the Inquirer concluded, the selection of Field proved that to give the Democrats control of the government would be equivalent to “surrendering the fruits of the victories of the rebellion.”²¹	20
Not surprisingly, the Democratic press (as well as independent journals) viewed the affair differently. It was commonly asserted therein that the nomination of Shields was merely a “trap” set up by House Republicans to force Democrats to vote against a Union veteran and thus create some political capital for the GOP. Thus the Boston Globe lamented that in proposing Shields the Republicans were “reviving feelings and animosities which should be buried in forgetfulness. . .[so that] the North and the South, the blue and the gray, would be again in antagonism.” Employing more colorful language, the Memphis Daily Appeal expressed its outrage over the attempt of House “Radicals” to wave the bloody shirt. “Here is a field,” one editorial read, “for the stale and stereotyped blackguardism of the chronic haters of Democracy, who never fail to condemn every Democrat who ever defends the south from the slanders of the radical fanatics.” Reversing the argument of Republican journalists, the Louisville Courier-Journal noted that the doorkeeper affray showed the Republican party to be “unchanged in its malignity for the South.” Once again Republican “scoundrels” were fomenting sectionalism years after the war had ended. The independent Harper’s Weekly added that the debate was “nothing more than [an] attempt to renew the sectional hostility of the war,” and regretted that Republican House members’ use of the bloody shirt “can only serve to inflame jealousies and suspicions which ought to expire.” The entire proceeding, the editorial concluded, furnished “one of the most contemptible pieces of demagogism that has ever been seen in Con gress.”²²	21
Indeed, it was obvious that Butler and his Republican colleagues in the House were using the doorkeeper affair as a vehicle to wave the bloody shirt for political advantage. After all, 1878 was an election year, and the Republicans could certainly be expected to use the controversy as an issue. In a letter to Butler, the prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County, Ohio thanked the congressman for “skinning the Confederates” during the debates and added that “the discussion on the Doorkeeper business has as it seems to me given us the key note for the fall campaign, and I trust you will see that it is kept up, no matter who or what is in the way.” Another correspondent offered that the contro versy furnished “evidence of democratic affection for traitors and treason” and would be “a good card to play in the coming campaign.” In its 12 April edition the Washington Post took note of “the great Republican newspapers which are [already] preparing to run the next political campaign on the ex-Confederate general now acting as House Doorkeeper.” Eugene Hale expressed his belief that the selection of Field would give his party a gain of twelve to fifteen seats in the congressional elections, and a number of southern Democrats worried that the affair might give the Republicans control of the House.²³	22
Of course, from the end of the war Republicans in Congress had employed sectional arguments in part to bolster their electoral fortunes, and the months surrounding the doorkeeper controversy indicate that this practice was alive and well in 1878. In May of that year, for example, the North American Review published an article titled “The Irrepressible Conflict Undecided,” written by Angus Cameron, a Republican senator from Wisconsin. Citing the existence of the “solid South,” Cameron attempted to strike fear into his readers by asserting that if the Democrats should win in 1880, the nation would be governed by “the ex-Confederate politicians and the Democratic leaders of the South. . .[who] flung her. . .into the arms of a civil war.” That war, he reminded his readers, was “a contest. . .of the powers of darkness against the powers of light, of ancient barbarism against modern civilization; of a despotism founded. . .on the slavery of a black race against a free republic.” In the event of the Democratic party regaining the presidency, this backwardness of the South (“a howling wilderness,” the senator emphasized) would be foisted upon the entire nation via financial mismanagement, debt repudiation, the payment of southern war claims, illiteracy, and violation of voting rights. To forestall such horror would require “maintaining the ideas and sustaining the party that restored the Union of the fathers.” That party, of course, was the Republican party. The South, Cameron concluded, “should never rule this republic.”²⁴	23
Cameron’s sectional strategy was employed by Republicans throughout the year. In May the Michigan Republican committee urged the utilization of the southern claims controversy as a primary issue for the 1878 congressional elections. In the House, that state’s Omar D. Conger led the passage of a resolution calling for a sixteenth amend ment to the constitution which would prohibit the payment of Civil War claims to disloyal persons. That same month even Hayes was forced to admit that his conciliatory southern policy was a failure, asking in his message to Congress that additional money be appropriated for the enforcement of election laws. Clearly, the end of the year saw a continuation of the sectional tension earlier evinced by the doorkeeper affair. Many Republicans were carrying lingering resentments toward the southern Democracy.²⁵	24
This antagonism was not groundless. Throughout the postwar years southern Democrats had worked to negate the Republican vote (particularly that of blacks) through fraud, intimidation, and violence. Indeed, the congressional elections of 1878 (held just seven months after the doorkeeper affair) provide a prime illustration of this fact. Shortly before the elections Democratic partisans in Sumter County, South Carolina employed cannons to break up a Republican rally, precipitating a riot. In Williamsburg redeemers dispersed a gathering of black voters and warned a state senator that he would be killed if he did not leave town. From Hicksford, Virginia came news that a black man was murdered by a Democratic member of the state legislature, and on election day black voters were killed in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. Due in large part to these and other outrages, the Democratic party made dramatic gains in the south. Only sixty-two of the 294 southern counties with black majorities went Republican, compared to 125 just two years earlier. In Asheville County, South Carolina (with a two-to-one black majority) only three Republican ballots were cast.²⁶	25
Republicans expressed outrage at the results. In his December message to Congress Hayes took note of the fraud and intimidation widely employed in South Carolina and Louisiana, an observation echoed by the report of attorney general Charles Devens. In that same month senator James G. Blaine introduced a resolution for an inquiry into the matter. Highly suspicious of Democratic vote fraud and voter intimidation, Blaine lamented the likelihood that the vote of a Union veteran did not carry as much weight as that of an ex-rebel. In addition, black voters who were driven away from the polls were still counted in determining the representation of their states in the House of Represen tatives, giving disproportionate power in that body to southern Democrats. Men of the South, Blaine acknowledged, are entitled to “equal political privileges with all other citizens,” yet “I venture here and now to warn the men of the South that we will never suffer them to be more.” The resulting investigation lent weight to Blaine’s arguments, concluding that tissue ballots, intimidation, and murder had been employed against Republican voters in South Carolina and Louisiana in particular. The outcome of the 1878 congressional elections thus at least in part justified the sectionalist arguments used by Butler in the doorkeeper debate. Indeed, in the following spring the Democratic Congress passed several appropriation bills with riders that provided for the repeal of federal election laws&#151further evidence that southern Democrats were willing to resort to drastic measures to maintain their control in that region.²⁷	26
Despite this vindication of sorts, Butler came under considerable criticism in the aftermath of the affair. This criticism was inspired primarily by his employment of sectionalist tactics in proposing Shields. Butler was certainly a seasoned practitioner of waving the bloody shirt (as biographer Robert Holzman notes, he always “saw to it that the South remembered who had won the war”), and has even been credited by some with giving name to the practice. During an 1868 speech, he dramatically waved a blood-stained nightshirt supposedly taken from the back of a Mississippi carpetbagger who had been whipped by Klansmen, and from that time onward he frequently employed sectional rhetoric. Biographer Hans Trefousse notes that the congressman waved the bloody shirt in support of Charles Sumner’s civil rights bill, for example, and he conjured up images of Ku Klux terror during his 1876 congressional race. As part of this sectional strategy, Butler frequently employed the image of the hobbled Union veteran, leading one newspaper to note at the time of the doorkeeper debate that “Butler’s stock in trade is the maimed and wounded soldier.”²⁸	27
Butler plied his trade vigorously during the doorkeeper controversy, and many in the press excoriated him for it. The Washington Post regretted Butler’s attempt “to rip open the healing wounds of the war anew,” while Harper’s Weekly,a consistent critic of the Congressman, offered that “the performance of General Butler was too plainly a trick” to revive sectional hostility by exploiting “Union military sentiment.” In criticizing Butler, a number of southern journals could not resist harkening back to the conflict themselves. Thus while labeling Butler as a man who wished to “revive the passions of the war,” the Louisville Courier-Journal attacked his war record, including the accusation that he aided Lee’s army while near Norfolk in 1864. In reminding its readers of Butler’s controversial tenure occupying New Orleans, the Memphis Daily Appeal sneered that his “prowess in war consisted in hanging an innocent man and in pursuing women and children.” Similarly, while noting Butler’s audacity during the debate, the Lynchburg Virginian derisively referred to the congressman as “the hero of Dutch Gap and the powder boat.” Indeed, it seemed that with the doorkeeper controversy southern journalists remembered how much they hated Butler for his role in the war, as the invective cast upon him was frequently venomous. Thus throughout April 1878 he was attacked as an “unprincipled demagogue,” a “scoundrel. . .with a lying tongue,” and nicknamed the “Essex Mephistopheles.”²⁹	28
Butler was also accused of using the doorkeeper controversy to propitiate Irish voters, a strategy that, according to biographer Trefousse, was a constant in his political career. In 1853, for example, Butler introduced a bill in the state legislature to compensate Ursuline nuns in Charlestown, Massachusetts for the loss of their convent to fire. While in Congress, Butler was a virulent Anglophobe, and under his tenure as commander of New Orleans during the war funds were funneled to Catholic orphanages. Noting this pattern, Harper’s reminded its readers during the doorkeeper affair that Butler deliberately nominated “an Irish hero” for the position. Editor George W. Curtis speculated that the nomination was designed to force House Democrats “to oppose an Irishman” and as a result alienate their Irish constituency. It was also noted that Butler stood to personally benefit by nominating Shields, with the Chicago Tribune reporting sarcastically that the fact that Shields had recently been lecturing in Butler’s district “of course had no influence upon Butler’s motion.” The Louisville Courier-Journal was more blunt, asserting that Butler nominated the Irish general only “to save himself next fall and capture the Irish Democratic vote in his Congressional district.” Butler “has long been popular with the Irish-American voters,” concluded the New York Sun, “and his appeal to the House. . .in behalf of Gen. Shields will not make him less so.”³⁰	29
Indeed, Butler received an avalanche of mail from Irishmen across the country thanking him for his nomination of Shields. He was informed that a meeting of Leavenworth, Kansas Irishmen passed resolutions to that effect. From Ohio, a correspondent stated his “admi- ration of your noble manhood” as displayed in the Monday debate. “No true Irishman will ever forget it.” A M.H. Hogan wrote that “I am pleased to see you, General Butler (a son of old Puritan Massachusetts) stretch forth the hand of friendship to. . .General Shields. He is a credit to the nation that adopted him and an honor to the Irish race in Amer ica.” Writing from Pennsylvania, Michael Egan also expressed his gratitude, particularly because “the Irish American soldier. . .recognizes but very few willing to give him much credit for anything.” Another Irish resident of the state assured Butler that should he ever run for national office “the Irish would cut loose from the Democratic party to give you their support,” echoing an Illinoisan who informed the congressman that “I know every Irish American speaking of you hopes it may come in their power to have a chance to cast a vote for you.”³¹	30
But which party’s national ticket might Butler run under? Butler, a political opportunist without peer, had switched parties before, and by the time his political career was over he would run under the Democratic, Republican, and Greenback-Labor banners. Holzman notes that Butler “switched his political allegiance whenever it seemed to be to the country’s interest (or his own, for he sometimes could not see the distinction).” Indeed, with the doorkeeper debate it became clear that Butler was positioning himself for either leadership in the anti-Hayes Republican faction or a return to the Democratic party. Regarding the former possibility, Hayes’ inaugural address contradicted Butler’s views regarding race relations, civil service reform, and the currency issue, and the two men quickly developed an intense dislike for each other. Butler strongly objected to several of the president’s cabinet choices, particularly the selection of ex-Confederate David M. Key as post-master general, and felt that Hayes’ conciliatory southern policy was “destroy[ing] the Republican party.” As evidence for this assertion, Butler cited the president’s withdrawal of troops from Louisiana and South Carolina as a “dreadful and shameful bargain” that solidified Democratic control of those states. In a December 1877 speech in Boston the congressman severely criticized the administration on a host of issues. For his part, Hayes believed that Butler was “the most wicked demagogue we have ever had,” but nevertheless put forth an olive branch in appointing the latter’s nephew to a position in the Post Office department. George Butler’s drunken behavior soon forced his dismissal, however, and relations between the two men further deterio rated. In this light, Butler’s sectionalist histrionics during the doorkeeper debate can be seen as an attempt to rally under his banner Republi cans opposed to Hayes’ overtures to southern Democrats.³²	31
Butler’s political views also put him at odds with the Republican party leadership in Massachusetts. While running for governor in 1874, Butler was dismayed by the state party’s adoption of a hard-money platform. Conservative Republicans stayed away from the polls in droves, enabling the Democratic candidate to achieve a narrow victory. Butler’s anger was further stoked in 1876, when conservatives aban doned his congressional campaign and nominated Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar. Early in the following year, state Republicans nominated George Frisbie Hoar, an enemy of Butler, for the U.S. Senate. Shortly before the doorkeeper debate, the Congressman’s foes scored another victory when Butlerite William A. Simmons was not reappointed collector of the port of Boston.³³	32
Given Butler’s conflicts with both the national and state Republican parties, a return to the Democrats was a distinct possibility. Thus, in April 1878, newspapers as diverse as the New York Times and the Norfolk Public Ledger speculated that Butler may have nominated Shields as part of a cheap ploy to appease northern Democrats for a possible return to that party. It was noted that during the Friday debate Cox wondered if Butler, in putting forth Shields, was considering coming over to the other side of the aisle. This prompted Butler to walk towards Cox, eliciting a roar of laughter from the House. Referring to the debate on Monday, the Chicago Tribune wondered if Butler was “planning to return to his old Democratic first love.” Indeed, Butler, whose “rag money” views regarding the currency question distin guished him from many of his Republican colleagues, had been flirting with the Democrats for several years. During his 1876 congressional campaign, for example, he distributed handbills asking Tilden support ers to vote the straight Democratic ticket (with the exception of himself, of course). Shortly before the doorkeeper affair, he supported Demo cratic candidate Benjamin Dean against Republican Walbridge A. Field in a disputed congressional election in Boston. The flirtations continued following the doorkeeper controversy, when House Democrats, sensing Butler’s frustration with the administration, saw to it that he was appointed as one of the Republican members of the Potter committee formed in May 1878 to investigate Hayes’ election. While serving on the committee he let it be known that he strongly doubted Hayes’ legitimacy. Later in the year Butler was nominated by Massachusetts Democrats for governor, and in the congressional session of 1878-79 the lame-duck congressman expressed his support of pensions for disabled Confederate veterans. With the nomination of Garfield by the Republicans in 1880, Butler came out for Hancock and formally rejoined the Democrats. Samuel S. Cox proved to be quite prescient.³⁴	33
With the doorkeeper affair settled, James Shields looked forward to Senate affirmation of the House resolution which placed him on the retired list. “I certainly do not [doubt] now,” he said in an interview, “that the body of which I have been twice a member would not be behind the House in endorsing my fidelity to the flag of my adopted country.” But it was not to be, as the Republican-controlled Senate defeated the bill. His pain was assuaged through his appointment by the Missouri legislature to serve out an unexpired term in the Senate, but poor health forced him to decline being a candidate for reelection. He died in Ottumwa, Iowa in June 1879, while on a lecture tour. As for Field, he followed his tenure as doorkeeper by serving as a U.S. civil engineer and as superintendent of the Hot Springs (Arkansas) reserva tion before dying in 1892 on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox. By the time of his passing, the doorkeeper affray of 1878 had long been forgotten in the minds of most political observers. Yet for a brief period in April 1878, that controversy dominated the headlines of newspapers throughout the country, and it still serves both as a reminder of the persistence of sectionalism in the post-Reconstruction years and as a microcosm of sorts of the controver sial career of Ben Butler.³⁵	34

Notes¹ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2310² Richard Franklin Bensel, Sectionalism and American Political Development, 1880- 1980 (Madison, WI, 1984), xix; Joel H. Silbey, The American Political Nation, 1838-1893 (Stanford, 1991), 139-40; Lewis Gould, “The Republican Search for a National Majority,” in The Gilded Age, ed., H. Wayne Morgan (Syracuse, 1970): 174.³ Stanley P. Hirshson, Farewell to the Bloody Shirt: Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro, 1877-1893 (Bloomington, IN, 1962), 251-52; Morton Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge, MA, 1977), 251-65; Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill, 1993), passim.⁴ David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 2, 84, 87, 127-29, 382.⁵ Donald C. Bacon, et al., eds., The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress, vol. 2 (New York, 1995), 670; John W. Polk, John W. Polk to the Members of the House of Representatives of the Forty-fifth Congress (Washington, 1879), 2-5, 11; Washington Post, April 5, 1878. Polk, a Democrat, blamed his dismissal on a combination of Republican partisanship, several Democrats who were upset over his distribution of patronage, and “a band of outside soreheads.” Polk, John W. Polk to Members, 1.⁶ Dumas Malone, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 9 (New York, 1935, 1936): 106-07.⁷ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2310-11; William Henry Condon, Life of Major-General James Shields, Hero of Three Wars and Senator from Three States (Chicago, 1900), 327-28.⁸ Washington Post, April 8, 1878; Louisville Courier-Journal, April 10, 1878; Memphis Daily Appeal, April 11, 1878; New York Tribune, April 9, 1878; Baltimore Sun, April 11, 1878; Shields to Butler, April 7, 1878, Benjamin F. Butler Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Box 106. A few days after the controversy ended, Shields commented in an interview that “I have had but little personal acquaintance with Gen. Butler until now. I found, however, that my friends in New England were his friends, and. . .I consider [him] an able-hearted, big-brained man, and find that the liberal element throughout New England regard him as their champion.” Washington Post, April 13, 1878.⁹ Congressional Globe, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2310-15.¹⁰ D.O. Barr to Randall, April 5, 1878, Samuel Jackson Randall Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Boston Globe, April 8, 9, 1878; Washington Post, April 8, 1878; Louisville Courier-Journal, April 8, 1878.¹¹ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2341-42; Boston Globe, April 6, 8, 1878; Malone, ed., DAB, vol. 3, pt. 2, 356-57; Charleston News and Courier, April 9, 1878; Washington Post, April 8, 1878.¹² Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1878; George Dawson to Butler, April 8, 1878, Butler Papers, Box 106; Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2343-44.¹³ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2344.¹⁴ Ibid., 2347.¹⁵ The Democrats won control of the House as a result of the 1874 elections.¹⁶ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2347-48.¹⁷ This bill ultimately became the Arrears Act of 1879. With this measure, a pension began on the day the pensioner had been honorably discharged as opposed to the date of application.¹⁸ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2348-50.¹⁹ Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2351-53; New York Tribune, April 9, 1878; Boston Globe, April 9, 1878; New York Times, April 9, 1878; Baltimore Sun, April 11, 1878. Following the controversy, an interviewer asked Shields how many wars he had served in, to which the general replied “Two; unless you count in the war over the Doorkeeper- ship.” Washington Post, April 13, 1878.²⁰ Drake Dekay to Butler, April 9, 1878; J.W. Pearman to Butler, April 14, 1878; Tillie Bareford to Butler, April 10, 1878; Gustavus S. Dana to Butler, April 9, 1878; J. Hyatt Smith to Butler, April 11, 1878, all in Butler Papers, Box 106.²¹ Philadelphia Inquirer, April 10, 1878; Chicago Tribune, April 6, 9, 10, 1878; Troy Times (date not given), in New York Tribune, April 11, 1878. It was reported that southern Democrats were upset over the removal of Polk, a Confederate veteran, and would demand the nomination of a former Confederate general. When the House Democrats caucused on the evening of the 5th, John B. Clark of Missouri nominated Shields, but Benjamin J. Franklin (also of Missouri) objected, noting that he would not be dictated to by Ben Butler. Besides, Franklin continued, the Speaker, Sergeant-at-Arms, and chief clerk were all Union veterans, and so the doorkeeper position should go to someone who fought for the Confederacy. Franklin’s arguments won the day, and Field was nominated. Washington Post, April 5, 1878; Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1878.²² Cincinnati Enquirer, April 6, 1878; Boston Globe, April 11, 1878; Memphis Daily Appeal, April 11, 1878; Louisville Courier-Journal, April 8, 9, 1878; Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1878.²³ W.M. Ampt to Butler, April 10, 1878; M. L’Velle to Butler, April 10, 1878, Butler Papers, Box 106; Washington Post, April 12, 1878; Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1878.²⁴ Angus Cameron, “The Irrepressible Conflict Undecided,” North American Review 126 (May 1878): 489-91, 499, 503-04.²⁵ Harper’s Weekly, May 11, 1878; Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 4883; Hirshson, Farewell to the Bloody Shirt, 45-53; Congressional Record, 45th Congress, 3rd Session, 86. Regarding southern claims, senator Cameron lamented that the passage of such a bill would “open wide the gates for robbery, and perjury, and fraud.” Cameron, “The Irrepressible Conflict Undecided,” 499.²⁶ Hirshson, Farewell to the Bloody Shirt, 45-48.²⁷ Ibid., 48, 50-51; David Saville Muzzey, James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days (New York, 1934), 140-41; Ari Hoogenboom, The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (Lawrence, KS, 1988), 74-78.²⁸ Robert S. Holzman, Stormy Ben Butler (New York, 1954), 178-79; Stanley F. Horn, Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866-1871 (1939; 2nd ed., Montclair, NJ, 1969), 150-51; Hans Trefousse, Ben Butler: The South Called Him BEAST! (New York, 1957), 230, 232-33; Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1878. Further evidence of Butler’s sectional proclivities is seen in letters such as his November 1878 epistle to a correspondent seeking to invest in the South: “I would not invest a dollar south of Mason’s and Dixon’s line unless I wanted to lose it. Of all the Jews, sharks and cheats I have met in my life, I think those in the South cheat the wors[t].” Butler to Rhoda E. White, November 14, 1878, Butler Papers, Box 220.²⁹ Washington Post, April 9, 1878; Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1878; Louisville Courier-Journal, April 9, 1878; Memphis Daily Appeal, April 11, 1878; Lynchburg Virginian, April 11, 1878; Chicago Times (date not given), in Louisville-Courier Journal, April 11, 1878. With Butler’s gubernatorial defeat later in the year, President Hayes, perhaps thinking of Butler’s doorkeeper performance, wrote that it “was one of the best events that ha[s] happened since the war.” Hayes diary entry, November 6, 1878, in T. Harry Williams, ed., Hayes: The Diary of a President, 1875-1881 (New York, 1964), 168.³⁰ Trefousse, Ben Butler, 38, 119, 221; Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1878; Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1878; Louisville Courier-Journal, April 9, 1878; New York Sun, April 6, 1878, quoted in Washington Post, April 8, 1878. As governor of Massachusetts in 1883, Butler appointed the first judge of Irish origin in that state. Trefousse, Ben Butler, 247.³¹ New York Tribune, April 11, 1878; James F. Legate to Butler, April 10, 1878; J.N. Collins to Butler, April 10, 1878; M.H. Hogan to Butler, April 5, 1878; Michael Egan to Butler, April 9, 1878; Patrick O’Keefe to Butler, April 15, 1878; William Dolan to Butler, April 19, 1878, all in Butler Papers, Box 106. Another correspondent predicted that “from the indignation I see among the Irish people at the rejection of their countryman for a rebel the democratic party will lose the fealty of this people henceforward.” M. L’Velle to Butler, April 10, 1878, Butler Papers, Box 106. See also Chicago Tribune, April 10, 1878.³² Holzman, Stormy Ben Butler, 242; Trefousse, Ben Butler, 235-36; Butler to F.R. Phillips, April 27, 1878, Butler Papers, Box 219; Hayes diary entry, November 6, 1878, in Williams, ed., Hayes: The Diary of a President, 168.³³ Trefousse, Ben Butler, 230, 232, 234-35, 237.³⁴ New York Times, April 6, 1878; Norfolk Public Ledger, April 8, 1878; Congres- sional Record, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, 2311; Chicago Tribune, April 9, 1878; Trefousse, Ben Butler, 233-43. One Democratic newspaper rejected Butler’s overtures toward the Democrats, noting that he “””is too young a democrat to elect a doorkeeper of the House. He ought to go home and grow.” New Orleans Times, April 7, 1878.³⁵ Washington Post, April 13, 1878; Condon, Life of Major-General James Shields, 327-29; Malone, ed., DAB, vol. 9, 107, vol. 3, pt. 2, 357.

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