The National Portrait Gallery's Warren Perry discusses an 1863 sculpture of Benjamin Butler by Edward Augustus Brackett,.

Benjamin Franklin Butler was a Democratic politician in military garb fighting a Republican war, and he sorely tried the patience of Lincoln and his advisers. His heavy-handed administration of the military district of New Orleans in 1862 was especially controversial. Butler was accused of everything from issuing orders designed to harass female secessionists to pilfering the silver spoons from the house he occupied.

In the summer of 1864, Butler wrote his wife asking if she wanted to see him. If so, he continued, "Do the next best thing-send down to Brackett and get the marble bust he has done."

Filmed at NPG, February 2014.

Benjamin Franklin Butler / Edward Augustus Brackett / White marble, 1863 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Children of Oakes and Blanche Ames