Blanche Butler Ames

Who was Blanche Butler Ames?

Blanche Butler Ames was the wife of Adelbert Ames, a decorated general of the American Civil War and Senator and Governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction.

Blanche Butler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the second child and only daughter of Sarah Jones and Benjamin Franklin Butler, who would also serve as a general in the Civil War. She attended school in Lowell until she was sent to the Academy of the Visitation in Washington, D.C. at age 13, where she described the sectional tension between northern and southern students on the eve of the Civil War.

Blanche met Adelbert Ames, who had served under her father in the Army of the James, while he was serving as Senator from Mississippi during Reconstruction. They married at Saint Anne's Episcopal Church in Lowell, the same church where her parents were wed, on July 21, 1870, and had six children: Butler, Edith, Sarah, Blanche, Adelbert, Jr., and Jessie. When her husband was elected Governor of Mississippi in 1873, Blanche accompanied him, and wrote a series of letters detailing her experiences as a Northern woman living in the South during Reconstruction. After Adelbert resigned under pressure in 1876, the Ames family returned to Lowell to pursue business interests, where they remained for much the rest of their lives.