. William O. Butler is now among the highest in the military
service of his country; and he has attained this grade from the
ranks--the position of a private being the only one he ever sought. At
the opening of the war of 1812, he had just graduated in the
Transylvania University, and was looking to the law as a profession.
The surrender of Detroit, and the army by Hull, aroused the patriotism
and the valor of Kentucky--and young Butler, yet in his minority, was
among the first to volunteer. He gave up his books, and the enjoyments
of the gay and polished society of Lexington, where he lived among a
circle of fond and partial relations--the hope to gratify their
ambition in shining at the bar, or in the political forum of the
state--to join Capt. Hart's company of infantry as a private soldier.

Before the march to join the northwestern army, he was elected a
corporal. In this grade he marched to the relief of Fort Wayne, which
was invested by hostile Indians. These were driven before the Kentucky
volunteers to their towns on the Wabash, which were destroyed, and the
troops then returned to the Miami of the lakes, where they made a
winter encampment. Here an ensign's commission in the second regiment
of United States infantry was tendered to the volunteer corporal,
which he declined, unless permitted to remain with the northwestern
army, which he had entered to share in the effort of the Kentucky
militia to wipe out the disgrace of Hull's surrender by the recapture
of Detroit. His proposition was assented to, and he received an
ensign's appointment in the seventeenth infantry, then a part of the
northwestern army, under the command of Gen. Winchester. After
enduring every privation in a winter encampment, in the wildernesses
and frozen marshes of the lake country, awaiting in vain the expected
support of additional forces, the Kentucky volunteers, led by Lewis,
Allen, and Madison, with Well's regiment, (17th U. S.) advanced to
encounter the force of British and Indians which defended Detroit. On
leaving Kentucky the volunteers had pledged themselves to drive the
British invaders from our soil. These men and their leaders were held
in such estimation at home, that the expectation formed of them
exceeded their promises; and these volunteers, though disappointed in
every succor which they had reason to anticipate--wanting in
provision, clothes, cannon, in every thing--resolved, rather than lose
reputation, to press on to t