her instance in which these latter traits of Gen.
Butler's character were still more strikingly illustrated. The
Indians, driven from the defences around the town on the River Raisin,
retired fighting into the thick woods beyond it. The contest of
sharp-shooting from tree to tree was here continued--the Kentuckians
pressing forward, and the Indians retreating, until night closed in,
when the Kentuckians were recalled to the encampment in the village.
The Indians advanced as their opposers withdrew, and kept up the fire
until the Kentuckians emerged from the woods into the open ground.
Just as the column to which Ensign Butler belonged reached the verge
of the dark forest, the voice of a wounded man, who had been left some
distance behind, was heard calling out most piteously for help. Butler
induced three of his company to go back in the woods with him to bring
him off. He was found, and they fought their way back--one of the men,
Jeremiah Walker, receiving a shot, of which he subsequently died.

In the second sanguinary battle of the River Raisin, on the 22d of
January, with the British and Indians, another act of self-devotion
was performed by Butler. After the rout and massacre of the right
wing, belonging to Wells' command, the whole force of the British and
Indians was concentrated against the small body of troops under Major
Madison, that maintained their ground within the picketed gardens. A
double barn, commanding the plot of ground on which the Kentuckians
stood, was approached on one side by the Indians, under the cover of
an orchard and fence; the British, on the other side, being so posted
as to command the space between it and the pickets. A party in the
rear of the barn were discovered advancing to take possession of it.
All saw the fatal consequences of the secure lodgment of the enemy at
a place which would present every man within the pickets at close
rifle-shot to the aim of their marksmen. Major Madison inquired if
there was no one who would volunteer to run the gauntlet of the fire
of the British and Indian lines, and put a torch to the combustibles
within the barn, to save the remnant of the little army from
sacrifice. Butler, without a moment's delay, took some blazing slicks
from a fire at hand, leaped the pickets, and running at his utmost
speed, thrust the fire into the straw within the barn. One who was an
anxious spectator of the event we narrate, says, "that although volley
upon volley was fi