284 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. IV. 



MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN WALTER BUTLER. 



By Captain Ernp:st Cruikshank. 



(Read jth January, i8gj.) 



Walter Butler, the author of the foregoing journal, was a man of 

 sufficient note to receive mention in nearly every history of the American 

 Revolution and most of the larger histories of the United States as well. 

 Unfortunately for his reputation, the story of his share in the struggle 

 has invariably been written from a hostile point of view. By his enemies 

 he was regarded as a fierce, cruel, and implacable adversary, delighting in 

 bloodshed and ruin. What he seemed in the eyes of his friends and 

 comrades has never been told. 



The eldest son of Lieut. Col. John Butler, afterwards so widely-known 

 as the commandant of the famous corps of rangers bearing his name, he 

 is supposed to have been born about the year 1750 on his father's farm 

 of Butlersburg, in the valley of the Mohawk, near Johnstown. At the 

 outbreak of the revolutionary movement he was, therefore, about twenty- 

 five years of age, and had been admitted to .the bar of the Province of 

 New York. Judge Jones, the author of a history of New York during 

 the Revolution, who knew him as a law student, describes him as " a 

 youth of spirit, sense, and ability." Another authority speaks of him as 

 a " pretty able young lawyer." His name appears as one of the two 

 attorneys who signed the protest of the Loyalists of Tryon County in 

 March, 1775. During the summer of that year he accompanied Guy 

 Johnson to a Council of the Six Nations at Oswego, and afterwards went 

 with him to Montreal to aid in the defence of Canada. His zeal and 

 activity as a Loyalist must have already given him some prominence, as 

 popular rumour named him as one of the leaders of the Indians who were 

 expected to make a descent upon the Mohawk valley at that time. 



Very shortly after his arrival at Montreal he received a commission 

 from General Carleton, the governor of the province, as ensign in the 

 8th or King's regiment. In company with Lieut. Peter Johnson of the 

 Indian department, he gained distinction in the skirmish on the island of 

 Montreal, which resulted in the defeat and capture of Ethan Allen, by 

 leading a party of thirty rangers and Indians against the flank of the 

 enemy at a critical moment. This movement threw them into confusion 

 and decided the fate of the day. The traveller Long names the same 



