Butler, Richard

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Butler, Richard

BUTLER, RICHARD. (1743–1791). Continental. officer. Ireland and Pennsylvania. One of the four Butler brothers of Pennsylvania who all served in the Revolutionary War. Richard Butler was born in Dublin on 1 April 1743. He was an ensign on Henry Bouquet's expedition of 1764. With his brother William, he subsequently became an Indian trader at Chillicothe, Ohio, and at Pittsburgh. He led a Pennsylvania company against Pittsburg during the dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia that preceded Dunmore's War.

In 1775, Congress appointed him an Indian agent, in which capacity he was charged with securing the neutrality of a number of Native American nations. Commissioned a captain in the Second Pennsylvania Battalion on 5 June 1776, Butler was swiftly promoted to major of the Eighth Pennsylvania Continental Regiment on 20 July. On 12 March 1777 he became lieutenant colonel of this regiment. He commanded the regiment at Bound Brook, New Jersey, on 13 April 1777. Joining Daniel Morgan's Riflemen in the spring, he took part in the battles around Saratoga, New York.

After Burgoyne's surrender, in October 1777, Butler returned to General George Washington's army as colonel of the Ninth Pennsylvania Battalion, leading this unit at the battle of Monmouth, 28 June 1778. Taking action against the British during the Tappan massacre, Butler's men got the better of a skirmish above Kings Bridge (Manhattan) on 30 September 1778. At Stony Point, 16 July 1779, Butler distinguished himself leading the Second Regiment of Anthony Wayne's Light Infantry Brigade.

During the mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line (January 1781), Richard and his brother William accompanied Wayne, who had become a close friend, to Princeton to negotiate with the mutineers; the latter insisting that they would only deal with the Butler brothers. In the reorganization of 17 January 1781, Butler took command of the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion, which became part of Wayne's Light Infantry, and joined General Lafayette (Gilbert du Montier) in June 1781. He led the attack on John Graves Simcoe's troops at Spencer's Tavern, Virginia, on 26 June, and took part in the engagement at Green Spring, Virginia, on 6 July. In the siege of Yorktown he led the Second Pennsylvania Battalion of Wayne's Brigade in General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben's Division. After the surrender of General Charles Cornwallis, Richard Butler marched with Wayne to the Carolinas and subsequently into Georgia. Butler commanded the Third Pennsylvania Battalion from 1 July to 3 November 1783 and on 30 September of that year was brevetted with the rank of brigadier general.

After the war, Congress again appointed Butler an Indian commissioner. This time, Butler acted far more aggressively in negotiating a series of important boundary treaties during the years from 1784 to 1786. In the latter year he was made Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern District. After Harmer's expedition of 1791 failed so disastrously to enforce these treaties, Butler, who had sat on the inquiry vindicating Harmer's conduct, was named Major General of U.S. Levies. Commanding the right wing of Arthur St. Clair's expedition against the Miami Indians, Butler was mortally wounded in the battle of 4 November 1791.