Source:Fleming-butler-2/content
THE death of Maj. Gen. Richard Butler of Pittsburgh, who is commemorated by the naming after him of a town, county and street in Western Pennsylvania, occurred in the battle with Indians in Ohio, the accompanying map showing the battlefield. It was sketched by Maj. Ebenezer Denny of Pittsburgh.
The Military Journal of Maj. Denny, who was an officer of the Revolutionary and Indian wars, contains an introductory memoir of Maj. Denny by his son, Dr. William H. Denny, and was published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1859. Maj. Denny was with Gen. St. Clair's Army and was present in the action where Gen. Butler was killed.
Extracts were published last week from Harper's "Encyclopedia of American History," giving brief sketches of two of the five fighting Butlers—Richard and Thomas—but these are incomplete and inaccurate. Better biographical matter and more in detail is presented today.
First, regarding Richard, the eldest of the brothers, or Gen. Butler, as he was better known. Richard Butler was born in the parish of St. Bridget's Dublin, April 1, 1743, the eldest son of Thomas and Eleanor Parker Butler. He was of noble lineage. Thomas Butler was born in Wicklow, Ireland, in 1720, the third son of Edmund, eighth baron of Dunboyne.
Though the Butler's [sic] traced their line back to the Norman invaders of England they later settled in Ireland, where, like many aliens, such as the Fitzgeralds, Burkes and others, they became thoroughly Irish; "out-Irished the natives," one commentator puts it.
Eleanor Parker,, wife of Thomas Butler, was also of noble birth, descended from the Parkers of Devonshire, England. Thomas Butler and family came to America in 1748 and settled near Carlisle, Pa., where he purchased large tracts of land. The Butlers were people of ample means.
Thomas Butler founded the first Episcopal Church in that section, St. John's in Carlisle, still existing.
The Butlers had two daughters, and the five soldier sons, two of whom were born at the Butler homestead at Mt. Pleasant, Cumberland county, near Carlisle.
Richard Butler was only 5 years old when his parents emigrated. The biography quoted last week stated that he came to America prior to 1760. This is within 12 years at the farthest of the actual date of his arrival.
Richard Butler developed into a man of strong mind and a thoroughly upright one. He became a farmer, but like all pioneers, was obliged to execute some military offices in the frequent expeditions against the Indians.
His long and arduous, as well as distinguished services during the war of the Revolution fill more than one page of American history.
Some better biographies of his brothers also have been consulted and additional facts found.
William Butler was the second son of Thomas and Eleanor Butler, and was born in the parish of St. Andrew's, London, England, Jan. 6, 1745. He was but three years old when his parents came to America. He entered the Continental Army in January, 1776, as a captain in Col. Arthur St. Clair's battalion and was promoted major in October, 1776. He became colonel of the Fourth Pennsylvania and served to the close of the war. Much praise was bestowed upon him by Washington for coolness and bravery on a number of battlefields, notably at Chadd's Ford, N. J., where he resisted the Hessians under Knyphausen.
After the battle of Monmouth, with a detachment of Morgan's Rifles, Col. William Butler was ordered to Schoharie, N. Y., to defend the frontier against Indian incursions, the Iroquois having remained loyal to Great Britain.
In October, 1778, Col. Butler, with his command, marched from Scoharie [sic] and penetrated the Indian country with great difficulty. He crossed high mountains and deep streams and destroyed a number of Indian settlements in retaliation for the Wyoming massacre. He served also with his command in Gen. Sullivan's punitive expedition against the New York Indians in 1779.
William Butler was the favorite of the family and was boasted of by all the Butlers as the coolest and bravest man in battle they had ever known.
At the conclusion of hostilities he retired from the service, January 1, 1783. He came to Pittsburgh to make this frontier place his home. He died here in 1789, and his remains were interred in Trinity churchyard. He had two sons. One entered the navy and the other served under Wayne. His living descendents [sic] are few, mainly residing in Philadelphia.
The Naval Register shows two William Butlers with almost contemporaneous service, 1800–1808. One a midshipman and the other attaining the rank of lieutenant. Neither of record in the War of 1812.
Thomas Butler, Jr., or Maj. Butler as best known in history, was the third son. He was born in the parish of St. Bridgets' [sic], Dublin, Ireland, May 28, 1748. He was but a few months old when his parents emigrated to America.
He was a law student in the office of the noted Judge James Wilson of Philadelphia when the War of the Revolution began. He joined his brother William's company in Col. Arthur St. Clair's battalion. He was commissioned first lieutenant January 5, 1776, and served at Ticonderoga. October 4, 1776, he was promoted to captain and assigned to the Third Pennsylvania Regiment.
His intrepid conduct at the Brandywine where he received the thanks of Washington and at Monmouth where Wayne thanked him, have been mentioned. In this latter battle he defended a defile in the face of a severe fire while his brother Richard's regiment made good its retreat.
At the close of the war Thomas Butler married Sarah Jane Semple of Pittsburgh and settled upon a farm near Carlisle. Here he enjoyed a quiet and happy life until the Indian troubles began when he joined St. Clair's army, St. Clair having been his first commander.
At St. Clair's defeat he headed a bayonet charge on horseback, though his leg was broken by a ball, in a vain attempt to protect his heroic brother, Richard, who had fallen and was at the mercy of the Indians.
It was with great difficulty and admirable bravery that Capt. Edward Butler succeeded in getting Thomas off the field. Exhausted by his wounds Thomas had fallen from his horse in the midst of the panic and precipitate flight which followed the fall of Richard Butler, commander of St. Clair's right wing.
Edward Butler had remained by Richard's side in the hope of removing him from the field, but was compelled to abandon Richard at the latter's command.
"Leave me to my fate," said the heroic veteran, "and save our brother, Thomas."
Thomas Butler has been called the "Navarre of the American Revolution." On reorganization of the Army in 1793 Thomas Butler remained in the Army. His services in Pittsburgh in 1794 as lieutenant colonel in command of the sub-legion at Fort Fayette were mentioned last week.
"He prevented," says one biographer, "the insurgents from taking the fort more by his name than by the strength he commanded." This is strictly true, as attested by Maj. Isaac Craig. In 1797 President Washington sent Thomas Butler to Tennessee as the best officer to command in the turbulent times there when it was necessary to dispossess certain unlawful settlers upon Indian lands.
"Accordingly Thomas Butler marched his regiment from Miami, O., in May, 1797, and with admirable prudence and that good sense that ever characterized him soon settled all difficulties."
A paragraph in Volumne 1 [sic], "Pennsylvania in the Revolution" recites briefly the career of Thomas Butler. This account is in the records of the Third Pennsylvania Regiment in which Thomas served as captain with his brother William, major of the regiment. The paragraph reads:
"Capt. Thomas Butler at the battle of Brandywine received the thanks of Gen. Washington on the field for rallying a detachment of retreating troops."
The paragraph then recites the rescue of Thomas by Edward at St. Clair's battle and concludes,
"He was promoted liteutenant-colonel [sic] commandant of the sub-legion in 1794 and in 1802 on the reduction of the army he was continued as colonel. He died September 7, 1805, aged 57 years."
Thomas Butler, Jr., had some distinguished progeny. He had one daughter and three sons. The eldest was Judge Thomas Butler of Louisiana, father of Col. Pierce Butler of that state who served in Mexico. The second son was Col. Robert Butler, who was Andrew Jackson's chief of staff throughout the War of 1812.
The third son was Dr. William Edward Butler, father of Col. William Ormonde Butler of Tennessee, who married a niece of Mrs. Andrew Jackson. Dr. Butler served under Jackson as his chief medical director. There are many descendents [sic] of Thomas Butler, Jr. living and prominent in Tennessee. Percival Butler was born near Carlisle, Pa., April 4, 1760. He was the fourth son. When but slightly over 17 he received his commission as first lieutenant in the Third Regiment of the Pennsylvania Line.
He put in that dreary winter at Valley Forge, was at Monmouth and at the capture of Cornwallis. He served under Anthony Wayne until the disbandment of the Continental army. In 1784 he emigrated to Kentucky. In 1812 he was adjutant general of the state and joined a detachment of troops sent from the state in the War of 1812.
Percival Butler had four sons, Capt. Thomas Langford Butler, aid [sic] to Gen. Jackson at New Orleans; Gen. William Ormonde Butler of Mexican war fame, and unsuccessful candidate for vice president with Lewis Cass on the Democratic ticket against Taylor and Fillmore in 1848; Richard Butler, assistant adjutant general of Kentucky in 1812, and Percival, Jr., who became a noted lawyer. Capt. Percival Butler's descendants are few—mainly in Kentucky.
Edward Butler was the youngest brother and was born December 31, 1763, in Cumberland county, Pa. He was but 13 years old when the Revolutionary War began and did not get into the service until 1778, when, at the age of 15 he was made an ensign in his brother Richard's regiment, then the Ninth Pennsylvania.
January 28, 1779, he was promoted lieutenant and continued in the army until the close of the war. In 1783 he was a lieutenant in the Second Pennsylvania Regiment. His exciting and melancholy experiences in St. Clair's army in 1791 did not deter him from serving under Wayne in the latter's successful expedition in 1794.
Edward Butler had one son, E. G. W. Butler, of Louisiana, who was educated at West Point and served as colonel of dragoons in the Mexican war.
Edward Butler's wife was a niece of the wife of Robert E. Lee (nee Custis), of Arlington, Va. Edward Butler died in Georgia May 6, 1803. His descendants are mainly in St. Louis, Mo., the children and grandchildren of Col. Lawrence Lewis Butler, Edward Butler's son.
Among William Butler's subalterns in the Fourth Regiment was Lieut. Ebenezer Denny, promoted from ensign of the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment May 23, 1781.
Capt. William Butler, with his company serving in St. Clair's battalion, was at Ticonderoga from January 5 to November 25, 1776. The company was enlisted in the vicinity of Greensburg, Westmoreland county, and many of the men re-enlisted in the Third Pennsylvania Regiment under Capt James Chrystie, who succeeded William Butler when he was promoted major.
A familiar Pittsburgh name on this company's roster is George McCully, who was an ensign. Thomas Butler was first lieutenant of the company—both ranking from January 5, 1776.
Stephen Bayard commanded a company in St. Clair's battlion [sic], his commission, January 5, 1776, also. St. Clair had seven companies under his command. Col. Bayard, partner of Maj. Isaac Craig, was one of the early merchants of Pittsburgh and his name is commemorated in Bayard street, and once in Bayardstown, now almost an obsolete name.
Maj. Denny served continuously in the Army from May, 1781, until 1792. Previously, as early as 1774, when a mere boy, he was a dispatch-bearer to Fort Pitt from Carlisle, and afterward served at sea in a vessel operating under a letter of marque and reprisal, but not liking this service, though several times in action, he entered the army.
Denny's first Army service was under William Butler and in a few days he had the sad duty of witnessing with the other troops, the execution of seven men for mutiny. Rigid disciplinarians were Wayne and the "old Continentals."
Denny served under both Harmar and St. Clair in their futile campaigns on the frontier. He was adjutant general for Harmar and an aide-de-camp for St. Clair.
Denny was the messenger who carried the news of the rout to Washington at Philadelphia, then the national capital. Denny left Fort Washington, the site of Cincinnati, November 19, 1791. He embarked on a 14-oared barge with an escort of 22 men of Capt. Edward Butler's company under the command of the captain. These men were from the vicinity of Pittsburgh and volunteered for the sake of getting home.
The party arrived at Wheeling December 9, after an extremely hard and tedious passage of 20 days. The weather was terrible, with heavy rains and snows all the way up. The last two nights the river was covered with ice.
The next day Denny hired a boy and horses and took the road for Washington and reached Pittsburgh December 11. Two days later he left for Philadelphia on horseback, where he arrived December 19. The battle with the Indians occurred November 4. Thus more than six weeks elapsed before the government knew of the disaster.
Denny waited upon the secretary of War, Gen. Henry Knox, immediately on arrival. Washington was extremely angry at the news. St. Clair did not arrive in the Capital until February. In April he was succeeded in the command of the Army by Wayne.
"Maj. Denny records in his journal:"
"Since I left Fort Washington have endeavored to banish from my mind as much as possible every idea of the slaughter and defeat of the Army; to talk at all on the subject is an unpleasant task for me, but there are certain persons to whom I must make full communications.
"My friends at Pittsburgh, and on to this place, seem to view me as escaped from the dead—astonishment takes the place of pleasure—and having in some degree got over those feelings myself, am considered as little better than one of the savages—but all this will soon be forgotten."
Truly the record of a curious mental phase, born of the memory of a day of horrors.
Maj. Denny met St. Clair in Philadelphia and with him he returned to Pittsburgh. Denny was then contemplating resigning from the Army, and did so May 1, 1792, to re-enter the service March 1, 1794.
The map of St. Clair's battle ground is marked, "Drawn by Maj. E. Denny, U. S. A.," and "Engraved by J. M. Baker's Establishment, 242 Chestnut street, Philadelphia." No date appears. The drawing appeals to me as having been well done. It is both rare and curious.
