Monday, October 20, 2014

Still alive--working on HOPELESS GENERAL and HAPLESS GOVERNOR for the Journal of the American Revolution

Or Fumble and Bumble, General John Butler and Governor Thomas Burke.

Here's a bit of one soldier's recollection of Butler in battle:



In this tour we marched towards Wilmington North Carolina, but before we reached that place we fell in with a party of the British, consisting of about 200 at Brown’s Marsh, and fought a battle with them in the night, in which battle I was wounded by a musket ball, which passed through my left hip. General William [really, John] Butler, Colonels Moore, William Lytle and Robert Mebane were all in this battle, but which of them was at the head of our party I do not know, though I think it was Colonel Mebane. General Butler was there at the beginning of the action, but left us very soon. Some say the General’s horse got scared and ran off with him, but others said the General got scared and ran off with his horse. How the fact was I know not.”
            
This sort of research is possible because of the work of Will Graves and C. Leon Harris.

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