Ben Butler was a Democrat after all. This fits him and every other current Democrat.
He came from a poor mill-worker background in Lowell Massachusetts, rose to be a shyster lawyer, got into politics, did his stint in the Civil War (he wasn't very good at it - eventually he caused so much controversy as military governor of New Orleans that Lincoln recalled him. Twice.), then got back into politics, where he participated in the impeachment of Johnson, and unsuccessfully ran for governor of Massachusetts and for president.