Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1882 — General Butler’s Bereavement. [ARTICLE]

General Butler’s Bereavement.

A correspondent of the St Louis Republican, writing from New-York, furnishes the following: “Ger/Sral Butler has received a severe blow in the death of his son Benjamin Jand those who have met him since Iris bereavement say that his tense (and rugged nature has been relaxed; 1 and his ro bust temner much mellowed. He had expected to introduce his boy intopractice at the Boston bar this faH/and to have shaped his future so that he could in time come into the large and lucrative law business which his father has built up. The General expected that his son would keep alive the name of Ben Butler and would keep in existence the place of that name in the legal profession. These hopes have all been dashed to earth. After an illness of ten days, in which the kidney disease, which seized Lieutenant Butler, made curiously swift progress, the young man died at Bay View, his fathers country seat. General Butler-wss. absent in his yacht America, came sailing un to the wharf at the edge of the grounds the day'.of his boy’s death. The yacht, which had been refitted, had behaved splendidly at sea, and as she came inlo the harbor in,a spanking breeze, wflh dash and spirit, her owner was proud as a new husband. He stood out upon deck as she was moored, and cast his queer eyes toward the wharf, where he saw his former partner, M. McDonald; his chief clerk, Mr. Fox, arid several others standing. He cheerily called out to them that he supposed they had come down to steal a ride to Boston in his yacht, and that he would be glad to have their company if they behaved themselves. Then looking up he saw the flag over his house at half mast. “What,” hesaidin astonishment, “the President is dead!” He observed that his friends did not answer, and he looked from one to another, he saw by their solemn faces that something had had happened. He seemed puzzled,for he had left his son in good health, though delicate, but as if by premonition he quickly asked, “How is Ben?” No one dared to tell him that his favorite son was a corpse. Mr. McDavitt took his and said, “Don’t be alarmed, General. 1 ’ The shock seemed to shake the old man like a blow from a strong battery. He did not say another word but walked into the house and took a seat by iris dead boy and sat for some time holding his lifeless hand. He seemed to find no expression for his grief in tears, and bore his bain in silence. The sight of the old General standing side by side with his son Paul, who is dwarfed in stature, when the body was lowered into the grave, was one that moved many to pity and some to tears. The General’s wife, who was, until the hour of her death, the pride and joy of his life, diedin bis presence under a surgical operation in the Massachusetts Hospital. His only children now are his daughter, Mrs. Adelbert Ames, wife of the ex-Gover-nor of Mississippi, and Paul. The General is worth over $2,000,000 now, and is, through his close attention to practice, rapidly adding to that fortune.” VT—<—