Gholston Ward Butler
They steer’d their course
to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long,
and now to part no more.
Francis Marion Butler and Gholston Ward Butler were brothers, born two years apart. Francis Marion enlisted for the Civil War on October 19, 1861 at Trenton, Tennessee. He was just seventeen, and under the age limit. He joined J. K. Pearce’s Company H of the 55th Regiment (Brown’s Regiment) of the Tennessee Infantry, Confederate States of America.
Gholston Ward Butler didn’t quite wait until he was seventeen to enroll. He joined at Huntingdon on September 15, 1862, while his birthday wasn’t until October 5. He mustered in as one of Company I, 2nd West Tennessee Cavalry (since referred to historically as the 7th Tennessee Cavalry), to serve under Isaac R. Hawkins, in the forces of the United States of America.
We can only imagine the turmoil in this family, with one son fighting for the southern cause, and one for the northern.
Gholston Ward Butler had reported for muster at Union City, Obion County, Tennessee on December 15, 1863. On March 24, 1864, he and much of his regiment were captured there, when his Captain was tricked by Nathan Bedford Forrest’s men into surrendering his superior force, with more reinforcements only a few hours away! The officers were set free, and the enlisted men were marched off to the newly opened Andersonville Prison, in Georgia. The reputation of the dreaded Andersonville Prison speaks for itself, and I’ll not go into detail here. Suffice it to say, that only twenty percent, one in five, of the healthy young men that marched off to that prison that day, ever lived to return home.
Gholston was paroled June 8, 1865 in Jacksonville, Florida. He was then transferred to Camp Chase, Ohio and discharged on June 22, 1865 at Paducah, Kentucky. At this point he was as thin as a skeleton, suffering from scurvy and chronic diarrhea and sunburn, with his feet and legs badly swollen up to his knees, that he “could just walk, and that’s all”. In more words of one of his fellow survivors, “He was very poor and weak, and low down...” This was from being a healthy young farm boy only a year and half earlier.
Here are James Marion Hodge’s own words about their trip home. “…from Camp Chase, Ohio, we came together to Paducah, Kentucky, and up the Tennessee River to Rockport Landing, about twenty miles from our home. We left Rockport at daylight, and we were only able to make about fourteen miles that day as Butler was so weak…I carried most of what he had and we both became so worn out that we lay out that night. …and came to Hollow Rock Church house about two miles from his home…he often had to stop, of course he was very weak and suffering all the time. This was the condition that Butler was in when he reached home…”
What he took away from this experience was a deeper belief in God. He became a father, a farmer and a Methodist circuit-riding preacher.
Gholston Ward Butler was born October 5, 1846, in the 18th District of Carroll County, Tennessee. He was the third child (second son) of Marvel Butler and Emily Spoon Butler, both from North Carolina. Their farm was surrounded by family. Abigail Butler, the widow of Marvel’s brother Seymore Spencer Butler, and her five children had a farm that adjoined Marvel Butler’s farm to the north. Directly to the south was the farm of Elijah Spoon (Marvel’s wife Emily’s brother, and another 7th Tennessee Cavalry USA veteran) and his wife, Sarah Laura Butler Spoon, and small children. Living nearby were many more Butler cousins, and families that had married with the Butler lines. Even when it came to selling this farm, in August 1857, it was to a cousin, Wiley W. Butler and his wife, Nancy Hicks Butler.
On June 13, 1857, Gholston’s youngest siblings were born, a boy and a girl, twins. Soon after, both his little brother and his mother died. It was two more years before his father remarried.
Gholston, like all the boys of his time and place, helped out on the family farm. He and his brothers and sisters also went to school, when it was available.
The family moved during the 1850s, while Gholston was still living at home, to a tract of land on the border of District 15 and District 16 situated on the west bank of the Big Sandy River, in Carroll County. It was from here that he went off to war.
Less than a year after he returned from war, one of Gholston’s fellow prisoners and also a member of Company I, Erastus Robert Kyle, married Gholston’s older sister, Angeline H. Butler. The wedding was held in the spring, on May 13, 1866. A year and a half after this wedding, when Gholston had just turned twenty-one, he married Erastus Robert Kyle’s younger sister, Nancy Pinckney Kyle, on October 29, 1867. This wedding took place in her father’s house, near Buena Vista in Carroll County. The bride was nineteen years old.
The farm that Gholston had bought for his new wife was right by his parents. On April 19, 1870, his sister Belzora married John King, and they lived for some time on this farm with Gholston and Nancy. Granville Hubbard Butler, son of Marvel’s brother Brantley S. Butler and Susan Huffman, also lived with Gholston and Pinkney briefly.
This first farm was bought for $300. It had 25 improved acres, which means that this area had been cleared. He had $15 invested in implements for use on the farm. They grew Indian corn, and cotton. They had $300 worth of livestock, which was one horse, 2 mules, 2 milch cows, one other cow, 4 sheep and 7 swine. They produced 50 lbs of butter in that year, 1870.
On Feb 5, 1869, their first child was born. She was a daughter, Onie Emma Butler. She was named for her maternal grandmother, Onie Margaret Williams Kyle, and her deceased paternal grandmother, Emily Spoon Butler. Two years later, on March 20, 1871 her sister was born, Mary Lennie Butler.
In December, 1872, Gholston and Nancy moved their new family up to Montgomery County, Illinois. A cousin, Calvin J. Butler, and his family had moved up there during the 1860s. On June 6, 1873, their first son, Zorah Erastus Butler was born in Montgomery County, Illinois. Life far away from the rest of their families didn’t suit them. In September, 1873, they came back to Carroll County, Tennessee. On January 28, 1876, their second son, Marvil B. Butler was born, named after his paternal grandfather. Unfortunately, he died very young. The only reference that we have of him is in an entry in his father’s bible.
By 1880, Gholston and Nancy’s farm, in the 15th Civil District, had grown as well as their family. They now had 72 acres, with 46 of them cleared and tilled. They estimated the value of their land, the animals and tools to be $715. With the children so young, they were hiring help, about two-thirds white, and one-third black. The livestock they kept were as follows, 2 horses, 2 milch cows, 1 dogged calf, 6 more cows, 15 swine, and 20 poultry. They planted 15 acres in Indian corn, 5 acres of oats, 10 acres of wheat, 13 acres of cotton, 4 acres of sweet potatoes, and beans. They produced in one year, 200 dozen eggs, 200 pounds of butter, 300 bushels of corn, 40 bushels of oats, 56 bushels of wheat, 7 bales of cotton and 15 bushels of sweet potatoes. They also sold 30 cords of wood!
Gholston Butler, called “Goad” was a man of medium small build. He was five feet eight inches tall, and weighed one hundred and thirty pounds. He was fair complexioned. He was stout and hardy before the war, disabled to various degrees, depending much upon the weather, ever after his incarceration. Yet he still managed to farm and raise and care for his family, though sometimes able to do manual labor at only half the normal rate.
Nancy and Gholston had six more children, of which we know the names and birth dates of five boys, all born in Carroll County, Eulin Hulley Butler, born April 17, 1878, Connie Marion Butler, born December 13, 1880, Judson McCall Butler, born March 10, 1884, Harrison Ward Butler, born February 22, 1889, Gail Walden Butler, born July 30, 1891. They had one more child that we have little record of, and no name.
Six days after her last son was born, Nancy’s younger brother Luther C. Kyle, died unexpectedly. Six weeks later, Luther’s wife, Martha E. King Kyle died. Two of their six children, Etha and Norman, came to live with the family.
On September 17, 1899, five months after his 21st birthday, Eulin Hulley Butler died.
Some time before this, his older brother, Zorah Erastus Butler, moved to Marmaduke in Greene County, Arkansas. Many Carroll County folk had moved to this area, including Mary H. Butler McAuley, Gholston’s half-sister. She had died there some years before, but her husband, Calvin Ethridge McAuley and daughter, Lela U. McAuley were living in Marmaduke. Other Butler cousins were also living in this area. Before 1910, Harrison Ward Butler had joined his older brother in Greene County.
In November, 1910, Gholston and Nancy, along with Connie, Judson, and Gail, moved to Marmaduke, Arkansas. Gholston was getting older and feebler, and we can only imagine that he took comfort at having so many of his children near him. Even Onie Emma, her husband, Robert Houston Smith, and their three children moved from Texas to be near Nancy and Gholston.
A year later, November 11, 1911, Zorah Erastus Butler died.
Gholston Ward Butler died August 20, 1913. He is buried at New Friendship Church Cemetery, in Marmaduke, Greene County, Arkansas, near Zorah Erastus. Nancy Pinkney Kyle Butler lived with her daughter, Onie Emma Butler Smith. She died on February 11, 1921, and was buried beside her husband. This is a list of their children:
Onie Emma Butler Smith
Mary Lennie Butler Hodge
Zorah Erastus Butler
Marvil B. Butler
Eulin Hulley Butler
Connie Marion Butler
Judson McCall Butler
Unknown Name Butler
Harrison Ward Butler
Gail Walden Butler
