Jessamine County KyArchives Biographies.....Butler, Percival 1760 - 1821
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 4, 2007, 11:21 pm

Author: Bennett H. Young

Gen'l Percival Butler.

   Gen. Percival Butler, was born in Carlisle, Pa., April 4, 1760. In 1778, he
entered the American army as a lieutenant. He was at Valley Forge with
Washington, at the battle of Monmouth, and at the surrender at Yorktown.
LaFayette was such an admirer of the young man that Tie presented him with a
sword as a token of his friendship and esteem. He married a Miss Hawkins, of
Virginia. Col. John Todd, who fell at Blue Licks, married another sister. It was
probably through this connection that General Butler settled in Kentucky. He
came to Jessamine county in 1784, and settled at the mouth of Hickman creek and
engaged in merchandise. This point was then one of great importance. The
Kentucky river was the outlet for a large part of Central Kentucky, and
flatboats plied up and down the stream, carrying1 the commerce of the country
tributary to it The rich lands lying in proximity were already producing large
treasure which found markets in the East and at New Orleans. Gen. James
Wilkinson had opened a large dry goods store at Lexington in 1784. Salt was
carried out of the Salt river from Mann and Bullitt Licks in 1796 to Nashville,
and the Kentucky river was also sending its tide of wealth to the outside world.

   In 1785 a ferry had been established at the mouth of Hickman creek by the
Virginia legislature, and in 1787 Wilkinson had pushed his trade down the
Mississippi to New Orleans, and the mouth of Hickman at once became a center of
trade.

   By this date roads were cut through from Lexington to Danville, Stanford and
Lancaster, and the chartering of the ferry as early as 1785 shows that a large
trade crossed at this point. Prior to this date no other ferry had been
established by Virginia except the one across the Kentucky river at Boonesboro
(1779). The next were those at the -mouth of Hickman, the mouth of Jack's creek,
Madison county, at Long Lick, and two at Louisville, to the mouths of Silver
creek and Mill Run.

   Gen. Percival Butler remained at the mouth of Hickman until 1796, when he
removed to the mouth of the Kentucky river, at Carrollton. He was made
adjutant-general of Kentucky in 1792 and took part in the war of 1812, and died
in Carroll county, in 1821.

   His eldest son, Thomas L. Butler, was born at the mouth of Hickman, in 1789,
He was an aide to General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans in 18T5, being
then only twenty-six years of age, and was left by General Jackson in command of
the city, to protect it against outbreaks. He represented Gallatin (then
comprising Carroll) county in the legislature, in 1826, and Carroll in 1848, and
died at Carroliton in 1877, aged 88 years.

   Gen. Wm. Orlando Butler, second son of Gen. Percival Butler, was born at the
mouth of Hickman, April 19, 1791, and remained there until he was five years of
age; then went with his father to Carrollton. He graduated at Transylvania
University at twenty-one years of age, and at once volunteered as a private in
the war of 1812, then in progress. He entered the service as a private, in
Captain Nathaniel G. Hart's company, the "Lexington light infantry." Young
Butler was made a corporal. This company was in the battle of Raisin, fought
January 22, 1813. Captain Hart was wounded in the leg in the fight. A British
officer named Elliott, who had been nursed by Hart's family during a severe
spell of illness, in Lexington, offered to protect Captain Hart, who was a
brother-in-law of Henry Clay, but he basely failed to redeem his promise, and
Hart was massacred. In both battles at Raisin, January 18th and 22d, Butlers
conduct commanded the highest praise. His courage, gallantry, and self-denial
elicited universal praise. He was wounded and taken prisoner.

   His heroic conduct at Raisin shows that he has had no superior in courage and
chivalry- in the world's history, and one event is thus told by F. P. Blair, Sr.:

   "After the rout and massacre of the right wing, belonging to the Wells
command, the whole force of the British and Indians was concentrated against the
small body of troops under Maj. Geol Madison, that maintained their ground
within the picketed gardens, a double barn commanding the plat of ground on
which the Kentuckians stood—on one side 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 lodgment 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 guntlet ot 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. The heroic 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 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 in one
end, as the flames ascended in the other. Soon after reaching the pickets in
safety amid the shouts of his friends, he was struck by a musket ball in his
breast. Believing, from the pain he felt, that it had penetrated his chest, he
turned to John M. McCalla, one of his Lexington comrades, and, pressing his hand
on the spot, said: 'I fear this shot is mortal, but while I am able to move I
will do my duty; To the anxious inquiries of his friends, who met him soon
afterward, he opened his vest, with a smile, and showed them that the ball had
spent itself on the thick wadding of his coat and on his breastbone. He
suffered, however, for many weeks."

   He was a captain in the battle of New Orleans, December 14, 1814, and on
January 8,1815, was brevetted Major for his gallantry, and General Jackson
commended his conduct in the highest terms. He was an aide on the staff of
General Jackson, in 1816 and 1817, but resigned to study law. He married a
daughter of General Robert Todd. He represented Gallatin county in the
legislature in 1817, was elected to Congress in 1839, and served four years,
refusing a re-election. In 1844 he was the Democratic candidate for Governor and
reduced the Whig majority to 4,000.

   On June 29,1846, President Polk appointed General Butler a major general of
volunteers, and on the same date Zachary Taylor, major general in the regular army.

   On the 23d of February, 1847, the Kentucky legislature presented him a sword
for his gallantry in Mexico. He bore a distinguished part in many of the battles
of that war. He was wounded in the battle of Monterey in September, 1846. On
February 18, 1848, he succeeded General Scott in the chief command of the
American army in Mexico, and remained in such position until the declaration of
peace, May 29, 1848. In that year he was nominated for Vice-President of the
United States on the ticket with Gen, Cass; but they were defeated by Taylor and
Fillmore. He received the full vote of his party for United States Senator in
1851, but failed of election. He was one of the six Peace Commissioners from
Kentucky in January, 1861, and thereafter he remained in the quiet seclusion of
his home, at Carrollton, and died August 6, 1880, in his 89th year. He rests in
a sepulchre overlooking the splendid scenery where the waters of the Kentucky
and the Ohio unite—a fit resting-place for him who did so much to wrest Ohio and
the Northwest from the savage and to make still greater, the renown of the great
commonwealth which had given him birth.

   He was a man of the highest courage, truest patriotism, noblest public
spirit, thorough culture and splendid talent. His poem, "The Boatman's Horn,"
induced by the associations and memories of his childhood on the Ohio, when
listening to the large and sonorous horns the boatmen were accustomed to blow to
announce their coming to the landing places on the river, is a real poetic gem:
The Boat Horn.
O boatman, wind that horn again,
    For never did the list'ning air
    Upon its lambent bosom bear 
So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain.
    What though thy notes are sad and few, 
By every simple boatman blown,
    Yet is each pulse to nature true 
And melody in every tone.
    How oft in boyhood's joyous day, 
Unmindful of the lapsing hours,
    I've loitered on my homeward way 
By wild Ohio's brink of flowers,
    While some lone boatman from the deck 
Poured his soft numbers to that tide,
    As if to charm from storm and wreck 
The boat where all his fortunes ride! 
Delighted nature drank the sound, 
Enchanted—echo bore it round 
In whispers soft, and softer still, 
From hill to plain and plain to hill,
Till e'en the thoughtless, frolicking boy,
Elate with hope and wild with joy,
Who gamboled by the river side
And sported with the fretting tide,
Feels something new pervade his breast,
Chain his light step, repress his jest,
Bends o'er the flood his eager ear
To catch the sounds, far off, yet near—
Drinks the sweet draught, but knows not why
The tear of rapture fills his eye;
And can he now, to manhood grown,
Tell why those notes, simple and lone,
As on the ravished ear they fell,
Bind every sense in magic spell?
There is a tide of feeling given—
To all on earth—its fountain, Heaven,
Beginning with the dewy flower
Just ope'd in Flora's vernal bower,
Rising creation's orders through
With louder murmur, brighter hue,
That tide is sympathy; its ebb and flow
Gives life its hues of joy and woe;
Music, the master spirit that can move
Its waves to war, or lull them into love;
Can cheer the sinking sailor 'mid the wave
And bid the soldier on, nor fear the grave;
Inspire the fainting pilgrim on his road,
And elevate his soul to claim his God.
Then, boatman, wind that horn again!
Though much of sorrow mark its strain,
Yet are its notes to sorrow dear.
What though they wake fond memory's tear?
Tears are sad memory's sacred feast,
And rapture oft her chosen guest.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

A HISTORY OF JESSAMINE COUNTY, KENTUCKY,
FROM ITS EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO 1898.
By BENNETT H. YOUNG,
PRESIDENT POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY; MEMBER FILSON CLUB; MEMBER CONSTITUTIONAL
CONVENTION, 1890; AUTHOR HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF KENTUCKY, OF "BATTLE OF
BLUE LICKS, ETC, ETC.

S. M. DUNCAN, ASSOCIATE AUTHOR.

Every brave and good life out of the past is a treasure which cannot  be
measured in money, and should be preserved with faithfullest care.

LOUISVILLE, KY.: COURIER-JOURNAL JOB PRINTING CO., 1898.


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