Archibald Butt: September 26, 1865 – April 15, 1912
Adapted and improved from Wikipedia, accessed January 30, 2012. Pictures to be added.
Major Archibald Willingham Butt (September 26, 1865 – April 15, 1912) was an influential military aide to U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Before becoming an aide to Roosevelt, Butt had pursued a career in journalism and served in the Spanish-American War. He died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
Personal Life
See: James Gifford: Archie Butt
Early life
Archibald Willingham Butt was born in Augusta, Georgia to Joshua Willingham Butt and Pamela Robertson Boggs. He was the nephew of General William R. Boggs of the Confederate States Army. The Butt family was prominent in Augusta, but had suffered financially during the American Civil War. His father died when Butt was fourteen years old, and Butt was obliged to go to work to support his mother, sister, and younger brother.
Thanks in part to contributions from the pastor of his church, and to his mother, who took a job as librarian at the University of the South in Tennessee, Archibald Butt was able to attend the University, graduating in 1888. He was also initiated as a member to the Delta Tau Delta fraternity during his college years.
Butt began a career in journalism with his first position at the Louisville Courier-Journal and thereafter became a reporter in Washington, D.C. covering the Capitol for several Southern newspapers, including The Atlanta Constitution and the Nashville Banner. While Butt was working in Washington he became the first secretary for the American Embassy in Mexico with former Senator Matt Ransom.
Military service
On January 2, 1900, Butt received a commission as a Captain of United States Volunteers in the United States Army.[1] He served in the Philippines from 1900 to 1904.
While he was in the Philippines, he had a part in founding the Military Order of the Carabao, a tongue-in-cheek spoof of military fraternal organization that is still in operation today.
In 1904, he was made Depot Quartermaster of Washington, D.C., where he met then-president Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1906, he was sent to Cuba to as part of a pacification force. In 1908, Butt, then a Captain, was recalled to Washington to serve as chief military aide to President Roosevelt. When William Howard Taft became President the following year, Butt stayed on in the same capacity. In 1911, Butt was promoted to the rank of Major.
By 1912, Taft's first term was coming to an end and Roosevelt, who had fallen out with Taft, was known to be considering a run against him. Butt was very close to both men and fiercely loyal, so he was caught in the middle in this conflict.
As his health was deteriorating during this period, his friend Francis Davis Millet asked Taft to give him a leave of absence to recuperate before the presidential primaries began. Taft agreed and ordered Butt to go on vacation.
During his time serving with two presidents, Butt wrote almost daily letters to his sister-in-law Clara, of Augusta, Georgia. These letters are prized by modern historians as a key source of information on the more private events of these two presidencies, as well as invaluable insights into the respective characters of Roosevelt and Taft.
Accompanies President Taft to throw out baseball's first pitch
In 1910 and 1911, Butt accompanied President Taft to the home opener of Major League Baseball's Washington Senators. The the sight of the nation's 335 lb (152 kg) chief executive hurling a baseball toward the mound from his seat in American League Park delighted the spectators. Four days before the 1912 home opener, while Butt was on a vacation he had taken at Taft's urging, Butt went down with the Titanic. "Yesterday the president could not be present for obvious reasons," The Washington Post reported after opening day.
Aboard the Titanic
In the early spring of 1912, Butt's health took a turn for the worse; urged to rest by President Taft, he left on a six-week vacation to Europe. He was accompanied for part of his vacation by the American painter and bisexual, Francis Davis Millet. See: Letters of Frank Millet to Charles Warren Stoddard: May 10, 1875 - January 3, 1900
Butt's only known official work during his vacation was a visit with Pope Pius X, during which he delivered to the pontiff a personal message from Taft.
Butt booked passage on the RMS Titanic for his return to the U.S. He boarded the Titanic at Southampton, UK on April 10, 1912; his friend Millet boarded the ship at Cherbourg, France later that same day. Butt was playing cards on the night of April 14 in the first-class smoking room when the Titanic struck an iceberg.[2]
The ship was completely submerged by 2:20 AM the next morning, and plunged to the ocean floor.
Major Butt's actions on board the ship while it was sinking are largely unverified, but many accounts of a typically sensationalist nature were published by newspapers after the disaster.
According to some accounts, Titanic captain Edward J. Smith informed Butt that the "ship was doomed" and that "lifeboats were being readied." Butt immediately began acting as another officer of the ship, herding women and children into the lifeboats. One account tells of Butt preventing desperate steerage passengers trying to escape.[3]
Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember disagrees with claims that Butt acted like an officer, claiming he was more likely quietly observing the ship's evacuation.[4]
Butt was last seen in the smoking room, making no attempt to save himself. He went down with the Titanic; his remains were not found.
Memorial service
As Archibald Butt's remains were not recovered, a cenotaph was erected in Section 3 of Arlington National Cemetery. On May 2, 1912, a memorial service was held in the Butt family home with 1,500 mourners, including President Taft, attending. Taft spoke at the service where he said,
- If Archie could have selected a time to die he would have chosen the one God gave him. His life was spent in self–sacrifice, serving others. His forgetfulness of self had become a part of his nature. Everybody who knew him called him Archie. I couldn't prepare anything in advance to say here. I tried, but couldn't. He was too near me. He was loyal to my predecessor, Mr. Roosevelt, who selected him to be military aide, and to me he had become as a son or a brother.[5]
In 1913, The Millet-Butt Memorial Fountain was constructed near the White House in the Ellipse. In Augusta, Georgia, the Butt Memorial Bridge was dedicated in 1914 by Taft.
The Washington National Cathedral contains a large plaque dedicated to Major Archibald Butt. It can be found on the wall in the Museum Store.
In fiction
Butt appears and plays a significant role in Jack Finney's time travel novel, From Time to Time. In it, Butt was sent to Europe by President Taft and former President Roosevelt in an effort to stave off World War I. In Europe, he apparently gets the necessary assurances to make a European war impossible. However, even when informed of the ship's approaching sinking by the time traveling protagonist, he refuses to save himself and his mission when women and children will perish. His mission fails with his death.
Papers and writings
A collection of Butt's letters (primarily dating from the Taft campaign and administration) is located at Emory University in Atlanta, while other Butt papers are located in the Georgia State archives. Collection of Butt's letters have also been published.
References
Hustak, Alan, Hermann Söldner, Craig Stringer and Geoff Whitfield. "Major Archibald Willingham Butt". Encyclopedia Titanica. Retrieved August 7, 2005. 1. //www.arlingtoncemetery.net/awbutt.htm
2. Lynch, Don (1993). Titanic: An Illustrated History. Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-8147-X.
3. Rutman, Sharon and Jay Stevenson (1998). The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Titanic. Alpha Books. ISBN 0-02-862712-1.
4. Lord, Walter (1955). A Night to Remember. Page 78. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-27827-4.
5. "Archibald Willingham Butt: Major, United States Army". Arlington National Cemetery Website. Retrieved August 7, 2005.
External links
Major Archibald Butt's Memorial on Titanic-Titanic.com
Washington Post article about Taft throwing out the first baseball.
A collection of Archibald Willingham Butt papers is housed at the Georgia Archives.
Further reading
Behe, George M. Archie: The Life of Major Archibald Butt from Georgia to the Titanic.
- Volume 1. Published April 2010. Hardcover, 765 pages.
- Volume 2. Publisher: Adobe Digital Editions. Published November 4, 2011. ISBN 9781257162673.
- Volume 3. Publisher: Lulu.com. Publication date: 1/19/2012. ISBN-13: 9781257162994. Format: eBook
Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., Georgians on the Titanic & On the Titanic: Archie Butt (1994).
