“Prize-winning historian Leonard brings her considerable skill in research and writing to this biography—the fullest and most balanced one yet—of the controversial Civil War–era military and political leader Benjamin Butler. . . . Leonard sets the record straight on Butler and provides an object lesson on the ways his personality and principles combined to effect public good.”—Library Journal
“Elizabeth D. Leonard’s biography . . . offers both an informative rebuke to the cartoonish caricature and a judicious reassessment of her subject’s human failings and capacities. The author acknowledges an unintended yet eventual admiration for Butler, but she also offers a convincing thesis that his legacy is more noble than contemptible.”—Journal of Southern History
“Butler surely lived a noisy, fearless life, and Leonard captured many aspects of it.”—American Historical Review
“An unapologetic appreciation. . . . [T]hanks to Elizabeth Leonard’s compelling rehabilitation, many more will decide [Butler] is worth living with for a while.”—Journal of the Civil War Era
“Leonard brings her vast expertise to bear on a life story that winds through some of the most pivotal moments and places in American history, from political battles to military campaigns, from freedmen’s schools to women’s suffrage circles.”—Amy Murrell Taylor, University of Kentucky
“Few Americans have had more historical shade cast their way than Benjamin Butler. Elizabeth Leonard explodes the simplicities of the man white southerners called “Beast,” revealing a complicated, flawed, and progressive disruptor who helped shepherd America through a tumultuous period of war and social change. This book is a much-needed antidote to the easy and enduring dismissal of Butler long espoused by adherents to the Lost Cause.”—John Hennessy, author Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas
