Of Thomas Butler, the third son, we glean the fol IN memoirs of individuals of distinction it is usual | ceiving this novel corps of commissioned soldiers, to look back to their ancestry. The feeling is uni- but in a proud testimonial did honor to their devoted versal which prompts us to learn something of even patriotism. an ordinary acquaintance in whom interest is felt. It will indulge, therefore, only a necessary and pro-lowing facts from the American Biographical Dicper curiosity to introduce the subject of this notice tionary. In the year 1776, whilst he was a student by a short account of a family whose striking traits of law in the office of the eminent Judge Wilson of survive in him so remarkably. General Butler's Philadelphia, he left his pursuit and joined the army grandfather, Thomas Butler, was born 6th April, as a subaltern. He soon obtained the command of a 1720, in Kilkenny, Ireland. He married there in company, in which he continued to the close of the 1742. Three of his five sons who attained manhood, revolutionary war. He was in almost every action Richard, William and Thomas, were born abroad. fought in the Middle States during the war. At the Pierce, the father of General William O. Butler, and battle of Brandywine he received the thanks of Edward, the youngest son, were born in Pennsyl- Washington on the field of battle, through his aid-devania. It is remarkable that all these men, and all camp Gen. Hamilton, for his intrepid conduct in raltheir immediate male descendants, with a single ex-lying a detachment of retreating troops, and giving ception, (who was a judge,) were engaged in the military service of this country. the enemy a severe fire. At the battle of Monmouth he received the thanks of Gen. Wayne for defending a defile, in the face of a severe fire from the enemy, while Col. Richard Butler's regiment made good its retreat. At the close of the war he retired into private life, as a farmer, and continued in the enjoyment of rural and domestic happiness until the year 1791, when he again took the field to meet the savage foe that menaced our western frontier. He commanded a battalion in the disastrous battle of Nov. 4, 1791, in which his brother fell. Orders were given by Gen. St. Clair to charge with the bayonet, and Major Butler, though his leg had been broken by a ball, yet on horseback, led his battalion to the charge. It was with difficulty his surviving brother, Capt. Edward Butler, removed him from the field. In 1792 he was continued in the establishment as major, and in 1794 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenantcolonel commandant of the 4th sub-legion. He com The eldest, Richard, was Lieut. Col. of Morgan's celebrated rifle-regiment, and to him it owed much of the high character that gave it a fame of its own, apart from the other corps of the Revolution. The cool, disciplined valor which gave steady and deadly direction to the rifles of this regiment, was derived principally from this officer, who devoted himself to the drill of his men. He was promoted to the full command of his regiment sometime during the war, (when Morgan's great merit and services had raised him to the rank of general,) and in that capacity had commanded Wayne's left in the attack on Stony Point. About the year 1790, he was appointed major-general. On the 4th of November, 1791, he was killed in St. Clair's bloody battle with the Indians. His combat with the Indians, after he was shot, gave such a peculiar interest to his fate that a representation of himself and the group sur-manded in this year Fort Fayette, at Pittsburg, and rounding him was exhibited throughout the Union in wax figures. Notices of this accomplished soldier will be found in Marshall's Life of Washington, pages 290, 311, 420. In Gen. St. Clair's report, in the American Museum, volume xi. page 44, Ap-ing general-Wilkinson-at Fort Adams, on the pendix. William Butler, the second son, was an officer throughout the revolutionary war; rose to the rank of colonel, and was in many of the severest battles. He was the favorite of the family, and was boasted of by this race of heroes as the coolest and boldest man in battle they had ever known. When the army was greatly reduced in rank and file, and there were many superfluous officers, they organized themselves into a separate corps, and elected him to the command. General Washington declined re prevented the deluded insurgents from taking it, more by his name than by his forces, for he had but few troops. The close of his life was embittered with trouble. In 1803 he was arrested by the command Mississippi, and sent to Maryland, where he was tried by a court-martial, and acquitted of all the charges, save that of wearing his hair. He was then ordered to New Orleans, where he arrived, to take command of the troops, October 20th. He was again arrested next month; but the court did not sit until July of the next year, and their decision is not known. Col. Butler died Sept. 7, 1805. Out of the arrest and persecution of this sturdy veteran, Washington Irving (Knickerbocker) has worked up a fine piece of burlesque, in which Gen. Wilkinson's cha racter is inimitably delineated in that of the vain and | old Pennsylvania friend to the parents, who transpompous Gen. Von Poffenburg. Percival Butler, the fourth son, father of General Wm. O. Butler, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760. He entered the army as a lieutenant at the age of eighteen; was with Washington at Valley Forge; was in the battle of Monmouth, and at the taking of Yorktown-being through the whole series of struggles in the Middle States, with the troops under the commander-in-chief, except for a short period when he was attached to a light corps commanded by La Fayette, who presented him a sword. Near the close of the war he went to the South with the Pennsylvania brigade, where peace found him. He emigrated to Kentucky in 1784. He was the last of the old stock left when the war of 1812 commenced. He was made adjutant-general when Kentucky became a State, and in that capacity joined one of the armies sent out by Kentucky during the war. Edward Butler, the youngest of the five brothers, was too young to enter the army in the first stages of the Revolution, but joined it near the close, and had risen to a captaincy when Gen. St. Clair took the command, and led it to that disastrous defeat in which so many of the best soldiers of the country perished. He there evinced the highest courage and strongest fraternal affection, in carrying his wounded brother out of the massacre, which was continued for miles along the route of the retreating army, and from which so few escaped, even of those who fled unencumbered. He subsequently became adjutant-general in Wayne's army. Of these five brothers four had sons-all of whom, with one exception, were engaged in the military or naval service of the country during the last war. 1st. General Richard Butler's son, William, died a lieutenant in the navy, early in the last war. His son, Captain James Butler, was at the head of the Pittsburg Blues, which company he commanded in the campaigns of the Northwest, and was particularly distinguished in the battle of Massissinnawa. 2d. Colonel William Butler, also of the revolutionary army, had two sons, one died in the navy, the other a subaltern in Wayne's army. He was in the battle with the Indians in 1794. 3d. Lieut. Col. Thomas Butler, of the old stock, had three sons, the eldest a judge. The second, Col. Robert Butler, was at the head of Gen. Jackson's staff throughout the last war. The third, William E. Butler, also served in the army of Gen. Jackson. 4th. Percival Butler, captain in the revolutionary war, and adjutant-general of Kentucky during the last war, had four sons: first, Thomas, who was a captain, and aid to Gen. Jackson at NewOrleans. Next, Gen. William O. Butler, the subject of this notice. Third, Richard, who was assistant adjutant-general in the campaigns of the war of 1812. Percival Butler, the youngest son, now a distinguished lawyer, was not of an age to bear arms in the last war. Of this second generation of the Butler's, there are nine certainly, and probably more, engaged in the present war. This glance at the family shows the character of the race. An anecdote, derived from a letter of an planted it from Ireland, shows that its military instinct was an inheritance. While the five sons," says the letter, "were absent from home in the service of the country, the old father took it in his head to go also. The neighbors collected to remonstrate against it; but his wife said, 'Let him go! I can get along without him, and raise something to feed the army in the bargain; and the country wants every man who can shoulder a musket.'" It was doubtless this extraordinary zeal of the Butler family which induced Gen. Washington to give the toast-"The Butlers, and their five sons," at his own table, whilst surrounded by a large party of officers. This anecdote rests on the authority of the late Gen. Findlay, of Cincinnati. A similar tribute of respect was paid to this devoted house of soldiers by Gen. La Fayette, in a letter now extant, and in the possession of a lady connected with them by marriage. La Fayette says, "When I wanted a thing well done, I ordered a Butler to do it." From this retrospect it will be seen that in all the wars of the country, in the revolutionary war, in the Indian war, in the last British war, and the present Mexican war, the blood of almost every Butler able to bear arms has been freely shed in the public cause. Maj. Gen. William O. Butler is now among the highest in the military service of his country; and he has attained this grade from the ranks-the position of a private being the only one he ever sought. At the opening of the war of 1812, he had just graduated in the Transylvania University, and was looking to the law as a profession. The surrender of Detroit, and the army by Hull, aroused the patriotism and the valor of Kentucky-and young Butler, yet in his minority, was among the first to volunteer. He gave up his books, and the enjoyments of the gay and polished society of Lexington, where he lived among a circle of fond and partial relations-the hope to gratify their ambition in shining at the bar, or in the political forum of the state-to join Capt. Hart's company of infantry as a private soldier. Before the march to join the northwestern army, he was elected a corporal. In this grade he marched to the relief of Fort Wayne, which was invested by hostile Indians. These were driven before the Kentucky volunteers to their towns on the Wabash, which were destroyed, and the troops then returned to the Miami of the lakes, where they made a winter encampment. Ilere an ensign's commission in the second regiment of United States infantry was tendered to the volunteer corporal, which he declined, unless permitted to remain with the northwestern army, which he had entered to share in the effort of the Kentucky militia to wipe out the disgrace of Hull's surrender by the recapture of Detroit. His proposition was assented to, and he received an ensign's appointment in the seventeenth infantry, then a part of the northwestern army, under the command of Gen. Winchester. After enduring every privation in a winter encampment, in the wildernesses and frozen marshes of the lake country, awaiting in vain the expected support of additional forces, the Kentucky volunteers, led by Lewis, Allen, and | into the thick woods beyond it. The contest of sharpMadison, with Well's regiment, (17th U. S.,) ad- shooting from tree to tree was here continued-the vanced to encounter the force of British and Indians Kentuckians pressing forward, and the Indians rewhich defended Detroit. On leaving Kentucky the treating, until night closed in, when the Kentuckians volunteers had pledged themselves to drive the were recalled to the encampment in the village. British invaders from our soil. These men and their The Indians advanced as their opposers withdrew, leaders were held in such estimation at home, that the and kept up the fire until the Kentuckians emerged expectation formed of them exceeded their promises; from the woods into the open ground. Just as the and these volunteers, though disappointed in every column to which Ensign Butler belonged reached the succor which they had reason to anticipate-wanting verge of the dark forest, the voice of a wounded man, in provision, clothes, cannon, in every thing-re- who had been left some distance behind, was heard solved, rather than lose reputation, to press on to calling out most piteously for help. Butler induced the enterprise, and to endeavor to draw on to them, three of his company to go back in the woods with by entering into action, the troops behind. It is not him to bring him off. He was found, and they fought proper here to enter into explanations of the causes of their way back-one of the men, Jeremiah Walker, the disaster at the River Raisin, the consequence of receiving a shot, of which he subsequently died. this movement, nor to give the particulars of the battle. The incidents which signalized the character of the subject of this memoir alone are proper here. There were two battles at the River Raisin, one on the 18th, the other on the 22d of January. In the first, the whole body of Indian warriors, drawn together from all the lake tribes, for the defence of Upper Canada against the approaching Kentuckians, were encountered. In moving to the attack of this formidable force of the fiercest, and bravest, and most expert warriors on the continent, a strong party of them were descried from the line with which Ensign Butler advanced, running forward to reach a fence, and hold it as a cover from which to ply their rifles. Butler instantly proposed, and was permitted, to anticipate them. Calling upon some of the most alert and active men of the company, he ran directly to meet the Indians at the fence. He and his comrades outstripped the enemy, and getting possession of the fence, kept the advantage of the position for their advancing friends. This incident, of however little importance as to results, is worth remembrance in giving the traits of a young soldier's character. It is said that the hardiest veteran, at the opening of the fire in battle, feels, for the moment, somewhat appalled. And Gen. Wolfe, one of the bravest of men, declared that the " horrid yell of the Indian strikes the boldest heart with affright." The strippling student, who, for the first time, beheld a field of battle on the snows of the River Raisin, presenting in bold relief long files of those terrible enemies, whose massacres had filled his native State with tales of horror, must have felt some stirring sensations. But the crack of the Indian rifle, and his savage yell, awoke in him the chivalric instincts of his nature; and the promptitude with which he communicated his enthusiasm to a few comrades around, and rushed forward to meet danger in its most appalling form, risking himself to save others, and secure a triumph which he could scarcely hope to share, gave earnest of the military talent, the self-sacrificing courage, and the soldierly sympathies which have drawn to him the nation's esteem. The close of the battle of the 18th gave another instance in which these latter traits of Gen. Butler's character were still more strikingly illustrated. The Indians, driven from the defences around the town on the River Raisin, retired fighting In the second sanguinary battle of the River Raisin, on the 22d of January, with the British and Indians, another act of self-devotion was performed by Butler. After the rout and massacre of the right wing, belonging to Wells' command, the whole force of the British and Indians was concentrated against the small body of troops under Major Madison, that maintained their ground within the picketed gardens. A double barn, commanding the plot of ground on which the Kentuckians stood, was approached on one side by the Indians, under the cover of an orchard and fence; the British, on the other side, being so posted as to command the space between it and the pickets. A party in the rear of the barn were discovered advancing to take possession of it. All saw the fatal consequences of the secure lodg ment of the enemy at a place which would present every man within the pickets at close rifle-shot to the aim of their marksmen. Major Madison inquired if there was no one who would volunteer to run the gauntlet of the fire of the British and Indian lines, and put a torch to the combustibles within the barn, to save the remnant of the little army from sacrifice. Butler, without a moment's delay, took some blazing sticks from a fire at hand, leaped the pickets, and running at his utmost speed, thrust the fire into the straw within the barn. One who was an anxious spectator of the event we narrate, says, "that although volley upon volley was fired at him, Butler, after making some steps on his way back, turned to see if the fire had taken, and not being satisfied, returned to the barn and set it in a blaze. As the conflagration grew, the enemy was seen retreating from the rear of the building, which they had entered at one end, as the flame ascended in the other. Soon after reaching the pickets in safety, amid the shouts of his friends, he was struck by a ball in his breast. Believing from the pain he felt that it had penetrated his chest, turning to Adjutant (now Gen.) McCalla, one of his Lexington comrades, and pressing his hand to the spot, he said, "I fear this shot is mortal, but while I am able to move, I will do my duty." To the anxious inquiries of this friend, who met him soon afterward, he opened his vest, with a smile, and showed him that the ball had spent itself on the thick wadding of his coat and on his breast bone. He suffered, however, for many weeks. The little band within the pickets, which Winchester had surrendered, after being carried himself a prisoner into Proctor's camp, denied his powers. They continued to hold the enemy at bay until they were enabled to capitulate on honorable terms, which, nevertheless, Proctor shamefully violated, by leaving the sick and wounded who were unable to walk to the tomahawk of his allies. Butler, who was among the few of the wounded who escaped the massacre, was marched through Canada to Fort Niagara-suffering under his wound, and every privation-oppressed with grief, hunger, fatigue, and the inclement cold of that desolate region. Even here he forgot himself, and his mind wandered back to the last night scene which he surveyed on the bloody shores of the River Raisin. He gave up the heroic part and became the school-boy again, and commemorated his sorrows for his lost friends in verse, like some passionate, heart-broken lover. These elegiac strains were never intended for any but the eye of mutual friends, whose sympathies, like his own, poured out tears with their plaints over the dead. We give some of these lines of his boyhood, to show that the heroic youth had a bosom not less kind than brave. THE FIELD OF RAISIN. The battle's o'er! the din is past, These lines are introductory to what may be considered a succession of epitaphs on the personal friends whose bodies he found upon the field. It would extend the extract too far to insert them. We can only add the close of the poem, where he takes leave of a group of his young comrades in Hart's company, who had fallen together. And here I see that youthful band, Till I could fondly lay me down And sleep with him on the cold, cold ground. I ne'er shall look on thee again; And Spring, with her effacing showers, Shall come, and Summer's mantling flowers; And each succeeding Winter throw On thy red breast new robes of snow; All dark and gory as thou art. Shortly after his return from Canada, Ensign Butler was promoted to a captaincy in the regiment to which he belonged. But as this promotion was ir regular, being made over the heads of senior officers in that regiment, a captaincy was given him in the 44th, a new raised regiment. When free from parole, by exchange, in 1814, he instantly entered on active duty, with a company which he had recruited at Nashville, Tennessee. His regiment was ordered to join General Jackson in the South, but Captain Butler finding its movements too tardy, pushed on, and effected that junction with his company alone. Gen. Call, at that time an officer in Capt. Butler's company, (since Gov. of Florida,) in a letter addressed to Mr. Tanner of Kentucky, presents, as an eye-witness, so graphically, the share which Capt. Butler had in the campaign which followed, that it may well supersede any narrative at second hand. "Tallehasse, April 3, 1844. "SIR,-I avail myself of the earliest leisure I have had since the receipt of your letter of the 18th of February, to give you a reply. "A difference of political sentiments will not induce me to withhold the narrative you have requested, of the military services of Col. Wm. O. Butler, during the late war with Great Britain, while attached to the army of the South. My intimate association with him, in camp, on the march, and in the field, has perhaps made me as well acquainted with his merits, as a gentleman and a soldier, as any other man living. And although we are now standing in opposite ranks, I cannot forget the days and nights we have stood side by side, facing the common enemy of our country, sharing the same fatigues, dangers, and privations, and participating in the same pleasures and enjoyments. The feelings and sympathies springing from such associations in the days of our youth can never be removed or impaired by a difference of opinion with regard to men or measures, when each may well believe the other equally sincere as himself, and where the most ardent desire of both is to sustain the honor, the happiness and prosperity of our country. "Soon after my appointment in the army of the United States, as a lieutenant, in the fall of 1814, I the 44th regiment of infantry, then at Nashville, was ordered to join the company of Capt. Butler, of Tennessee. When I arrived, and reported myself, I found the company under orders to join our regiment in the South. The march, mostly through an unsettled wilderness, was conducted by Capt. Butler with his usual promptitude and energy, and by forced and rapid movements we arrived at Fort Montgomery, the head-quarters of Gen. Jackson, a short distance above the Florida line, just in time to follow our beloved general in his bold enterprise to drive the enemy from his strong position in a neutral territory. The van-guard of the army destined for the invasion of Louisiana had made Pensacola its headquarters, and the British navy in the Gulf of Mexico had rendezvoused in that beautiful bay. "The penetrating sagacity of Gen. Jackson discovered the advantage of the position assumed by the British forces, and with a decision and energy which never faltered, he resolved to find his enemy, even under the flag of a neutral power. This was |