William Butler was born on April 15, 1831, in Greenville County, South Carolina, to William and Jane Butler. His father was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Whig Party politician who served in Congress in the early 1840s. Butler joined the United States Army in the 1850s, but he sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

 

In early 1861, he received a commission as captain of Company B of the 1^st South Carolina Infantry. The regiment was stationed at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in July 1861 and then to colonel in November 1862. He received a parole on April 28, 1865, as part of General Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee.

 

He married Eugenia Ransom on January 22, 1861, and they had at least three children: Mary, born around 1863; Lillie, born around 1867; and William, born around 1869. Butler settled in Edgefield County, South Carolina, after the war, and he earned a living as a farmer. By 1870, he owned $500 of personal property. His wife died in 1876. In early 1877, Governor Wade Hampton appointed Butler “Chief Constable of the State.” He died on in Greenville, South Carolina, on November 20, 1910.

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