d on active duty, with a company which he had recruited at
Nashville, Tennessee. His regiment was ordered to join General Jackson
in the South, but Captain Butler finding its movements too tardy,
pushed on, and effected that junction with his company alone. Gen.
Call, at that time an officer in Capt. Butler's company, (since Gov.
of Florida,) in a letter addressed to Mr. Tanner of Kentucky,
presents, as an eye-witness, so graphically, the share which Capt.
Butler had in the campaign which followed, that it may well supersede
any narrative at second hand.

"_Tallehasse, April_ 3, 1844.

"SIR,--I avail myself of the earliest leisure I
have had since the receipt of your letter of the
18th of February, to give you a reply.

"A difference of political sentiments will not
induce me to withhold the narrative you have
requested, of the military services of Col. Wm. O.
Butler, during the late war with Great Britain,
while attached to the army of the South. My
intimate association with him, in camp, on the
march, and in the field, has perhaps made me as
well acquainted with his merits, as a gentleman and
a soldier, as any other man living. And although we
are now standing in opposite ranks, I cannot forget
the days and nights we have stood side by side,
facing the common enemy of our country, sharing the
same fatigues, dangers, and privations, and
participating in the same pleasures and enjoyments.
The feelings and sympathies springing from such
associations in the days of our youth can never be
removed or impaired by a difference of opinion with
regard to men or measures, when each may well
believe the other equally sincere as himself, and
where the most ardent desire of both is to sustain
the honor, the happiness and prosperity of our
country.

"Soon after my appointment in the army of the
United States, as a lieutenant, in the fall of
1814, I was ordered to join the company of Capt.
Butler, of the 44th regiment of infantry, then at
Nashville, Tennessee. When I arrived, and reported
myself, I found the company under orders to join
our regiment in the South. The march, mostly
through an unsettled wi