Appointment as Major-General-Service in Mexico Monterey-Wounded - Return Home Second in (163) LIFE OF MAJOR-GENERAL BUTLER. CHAPTER I. Family History-Volunteers as Private-Appointed in the Army -River Raisin-Prisoner-Promotion-March South-Gen, Call's Letter. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM O. BUTLER, of the United States volunteer service, is a member of a family of soldiers. His grandfather, Thomas Butler, was born April 6, 1720, at the town of Kilkenny in Ireland, where also he was married in 1742. Three of his five sons were born in Ireland, but the other two, Pierce, the father of William O. Butler, and Edward the junior of all, were natives of Pennsylvania. Every one of these men, and all the sons of each, with the exception of one individual, distinguished as a judge, were soldiers. Francis P. Blair, Esq., in a sketch of General Butler, recently published, states that Richard, the eldest, was a lieutenant-colonel of the celebrated rifle corps of Morgan, and attributes to him much of the peculiar celebrity, that famous body of men acquired from the high discipline which separated it from every other corps of the same arm of the revolutionary army. On the promotion of Colonel Morgan to a higher grade, Lieutenant-Colonel Butler was also promoted, and as its colonel led his old regiment in the famous coup de main of Wayne on Stony Point. In 1790, he was appointed a major-general, and November 4th of the next year, fell in the bloody and unfortunate but gallant contest of St. Clair with the Indians. His death had a peculiar and melancholy interest, so that a group of wax figures representing the scene, attracted crowds in almost every city of the Union. The second son, William, rose to the rank of colonel in the revolutionary war, throughout which he served. When the army of the confederacy was so reduced, that many of the officers were without commands, they organized themselves into a corps and offered to serve as privates. The scheme was patriotic, but would have introduced great difficulties in the discipline of the army, and General Washington, though he complimented their devotion, was too prudent to accept their offer. Of all the family he was the pride, and is said to have been one of the coolest men in the army in defence, and most headlong in attack. The third son, Thomas, in 1776, was a student of law in the office of Judge Wilson, but at the call of his country, abandoned his studies, and entered the army as a subaltern. He soon became a captain, and at the end of the war held that grade. He was at every battle in the middle States, and at Brandywine his services were so brilliant that General Washington, through his aid, Colonel Hamilton, thanked him at the head of the army for rallying a body of retreating troops, and giving the enemy a heavy fire. At Monmouth he received the same compliment from General Wayne, for defending a defile attacked by the British, while the regiment of his brother, Colonel Richard Butler, made good its retreat. Disbanded at the end of the war, he married, and devoted himself to agricultural pursuits until 1791, when he commanded a battalion of the division of his elder brother, Richard. Though his leg was broken by a rifle ball, he led his regiment in the last forlorn charge of General St. Clair, and was with difficulty taken from the field by his |