Edward G. W. Butler

Edward George Washington Butler (February 22, 1800September 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. 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. Butler and Andrew Jackson Donelson, another of Jackson's wards, graduated ninth and second-ranked in the West Point class of 1820. Upon receiving his commission, he first served as a military land surveyor and then in an artillery unit.

In 1825 he assisted Edmund Pendleton Gaines in negotiations with the Muscogee people. 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.

In 1831 Butler resigned from the army and became a sugar planter. He settled in Louisiana and owned Dunboyne Plantation in Iberville Parish. Butler's wife, Frances Parke Lewis, was a daughter of Lawrence Lewis and Eleanor Parke Custis, her mother being a granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington. Edward and Frances relocated scores of Mount Vernon slaves to their sugar plantation in the lower Mississippi River valley.

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. He was a member of the Granite Democratic Club of Iberville Parish.

His son Edward G. W. Butler Jr. was appointed Secretary of the American Legation in Berlin in 1856.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Edward G.W.
1800 births
1888 deaths
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
United States Military Academy alumni
Family of Andrew Jackson
Place of birth missing
American militia generals
United States Army colonels
Sugar plantation owners
American slave owners
American sugar industry businesspeople
Louisiana Jacksonians