Edward G. W. Butler

Col. Edward George Washington Butler

Edward George Washington Butler (February 22, 1800 – September 5, 1888) was an American landowner and military officer.

Life

He was one of the four children of American Revolutionary War soldier Edward Butler. When his father died in 1803, future president Andrew Jackson and his wife Rachel Donelson Jackson became Butler's guardians.^[1] Jackson believed West Point was the best educational opportunity in the country and secured an appointment for Butler at U.S. Military Academy at West Point.^[2][3] Butler and Andrew Jackson Donelson, another of Jackson's wards, graduated ninth and second-ranked in the West Point class of 1820.^[4] Upon receiving his commission, he first served as a military land surveyor and then in an artillery unit.^[5]

In 1825 he assisted Edmund Pendleton Gaines in negotiations with the Muscogee people.^[6] The same year Butler refused to shake Henry Clay's hand when they were introduced, as Clay was a political opponent of Jackson, his guardian. This rejection caused a slow-burn political scandal and Gaines and Butler would likely both eventually have been discharged from the regular army as a result had Jackson not won the 1828 presidential election.^[7]

In 1831 Butler resigned from the army and became a sugar planter.^[8] He settled in Louisiana and owned Dunboyne Plantation in Iberville Parish.^[9] When the Mexican–American War began in 1846 Butler was a Major General in the Louisiana Militia. In the next year he temporarily returned to the army as Colonel of the 3rd U. S. Regiment of Dragoons, a wartime unit raised for one year or service; the latter ending in July 1848.^[8]

His wife, Francis Parke Lewis, was a daughter of Lawrence Lewis and Eleanor Parke Custis, her mother being a granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington.^[10] His son Edward G. W. Butler Jr. was appointed Secretary of the American Legation in Berlin in 1856.^[11]

See also

• Joseph Erwin – American businessman (1762–1829)

References

1. Holden, Reuben A. (1969). "A President's Appeal". The Yale University Library Gazette. 44 (1): 16–20. ISSN 0044-0175.
2. "(MEXICAN WAR) Archive of letters to Colonel Edward GW Butler". catalogue.swanngalleries.com. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
3. Plater (2015), pp. 8–9.
4. Plater (2015), p. 9.
5. Plater (2015), p. 11.
6. "Tennessee Department of State: Tennessee State Library and Archives". sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
7. Plater (2015), pp. 18–19.
8. Cullum, George W. (1891). Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy, Vol. 1 (1st ed.). New York: D. Van Nostrand. p. 251.
9. "The Butlers of Iberville Parish". Country Roads Magazine. 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
10. Linn (1883), p. 6.
11. "Appointments by the President". nytimes.com. 1856-01-28.

Sources

• Linn, John Blair (1883). "The Butler Family of the Pennsylvania Line". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 7 (1): 1–6. ISSN 0031-4587.
• Plater, David D. (2015). The Butlers of Iberville Parish, Louisiana: Dunboyne Plantation in the 1800s. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-6128-9. Project MUSE book 48467.