Background
Pierce Mason Butler was born on April 11, 1798 at Mount Willing in Edgefield District, the sixth child of William Butler, a Revolutionary soldier, and his wife, Behethland Foote Moore.
Pierce Mason Butler was born on April 11, 1798 at Mount Willing in Edgefield District, the sixth child of William Butler, a Revolutionary soldier, and his wife, Behethland Foote Moore.
Like his older brother, Andrew Pickens Butler, Pierce was trained at Moses Waddell's academy in Abbeville.
Evincing ambition for a military career, Pierce Mason Butler was, through Calhoun's influence, appointed in 1818 lieutenant in the United States army. By 1825 he was a captain.
Shortly after his marriage, Butler resigned from the army in 1829 and settled in Columbia. In civil life again, he chose banking as his field and became in a few years president of the state bank of South Carolina. He had more than passing interest in public affairs, however, and manifested particular enthusiasm for nullification, signing the ordinance of November 1832.
Particularly active in behalf of education, he was elected a trustee of South Carolina College in 1833. When the excitement of the Seminole War was at its height, he accepted a commission as lieutenant-colonel of Godwyn's South Carolina regiment. Returning to Columbia, he was elected governor in 1836, though, true to his declared conviction that the office should seek the man, he made no campaign.
Shortly after he left office in 1838, he was named agent to the Cherokees and returned to Fort Gibson where he remained until ill health prompted his resignation in 1846. According to a tribute published in an Indian journal he was just with and showed sympathy for the Cherokees. At the outbreak of the Mexican War he was called to be colonel of the Palmetto Regiment.
He was killed at Churubusco while leading this regiment in the face of what General James Shields, writing to Governor Johnson (September 2, 1847), called "one of the most terrific fires to which soldiers were ever subjected. " Wounded in the early stages of the conflict, Butler had continued to advance until a musket ball through the head caused instantaneous death. His body was brought back to Edgefield.
Many tributes in verse were written at the time of his death, one of them being by the youthful Paul Hamilton Hayne.
Earnestly seeking to give a practical and helpful administration, he endeavored to eliminate the residual bitterness from the long discussion of tariff and nullification and to initiate beneficial measures. He had a vision--rare in the ante-bellum South--of a public school system for the whole state, and appointed a commission headed by Stephen Elliott to make surveys and recommendations. He threw his influence in favor of the proposed Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Railway, believing that better commercial and political relations between the South and West would follow.
Pierce Butler was marked, however, by broad social interests and at the time of his death was a member of many fraternal organizations in his state.
Tall and distinguished in personal appearance, Butler was by temperament more of a military officer than a politician. Shields bears witness to the Carolinian's popularity in the brigade to which he was attached.
He met his future wife at Fort Gibson, where he held most of his service. Her name was Miranda Julia Duval of Maryland, who was visiting her brother, Edward, agent to the Cherokees.