Levi Thomas Butler

He moved to Texas with his family in the 1850s and in 1860 was a 19 year old clerk living with his parents and siblings on the large and prosperous family farm at Starrville in Smith County, TX. Although holding 56 slaves, his family were Unionists, and on 10 May 1861 Levi was indicted by a Smith County grand jury for treason for making "anti-secession statements."

He enlisted as a Private in Company D, 12th Mississippi Infantry on 14 October 1861 at Fairfax, VA. He was wounded near Richmond, VA in late June 1862.

He was killed in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was originally buried "In David Reel's field, 3rd one from house, S.W. corner", on the battlefield at Sharpsburg. His treason charge back in Texas was dismissed in 1863 - Defendant killed at Sharpsburg.

He was probably reinterred from his original burial on the battlefield to Hagerstown in about 1874.

Burial information from Pruett.1. His service from his Compiled Confederate Military Service Records,2 online from fold3. His death at Sharpsburg from a casualty list on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune of 29 October 1862. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860; thanks to Randy Gilbert for the story of his treason charge. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

During the Civil War period [Levi's father] William B. [Booker] Butler avowed his allegiance to the Union and advocated the settlement of the political differences under the flag, and for these utterances his life was threatened and his influence in the community undermined ... Although regarded as an enemy of the South during the Rebellion, it is a fact that few avowed secessionists furnished more sons and better soldiers in support of the Confederate cause than did he.
-- F.W. Johnson's A History of Texas and Texans (Vol. 5/Pt. 2, 1914)

08/02/1840; Chambers County, AL

09/17/1862; Sharpsburg, MD; burial in Washington Confederate Cemetery, Hagerstown, MD