88

Josiah B. Kinsman.

Letter on the wild reception for Benjamin Butler on his return from New Orleans to New England.

Lowell, MA, 11 January 1863
Autograph Letter Signed to mother Eliza Page Kinsman of Cornville, ME. 3 pages, 8 x 4¾ inches, on one folding sheet; mailing folds, minor foxing. 

President Lincoln ordered General Butler back north in late 1862 after his controversial stint as the military governor of New Orleans. While Butler was *cough* somewhat unpopular in New Orleans, he was regarded as a hero in the abolitionist north for his aggressive tactics against Confederate slaveowners. This letter by his staff member Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Burnham Kinsman (1824-1912) describes the wildly enthusiastic reception Butler met in his native New England on the train ride home. 

"Thousands of people flocked to the depots in Bridgeport. We had a little accident . . . which detained us for half an hour as the crowd was terrible, completely covering the Gen. on through the depot . . . . At last I made a stand and got him through a door into a coffee saloon, and we made out to get back into the depot again when he shook hands with some thousands, and we got into the car and locked the door. . . . At Springfield as we entered the cannons were roaring and the mob cheering and yelling so that it seemed as though the depot would be torn to pieces. . . . The mayor of Lowell met us last night . . . amidst the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon and the city was illuminated."

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