The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1933-05-05

kASp9%M quality TO plead for excuse" Still
0@AAS another historian characterizes him
as "a of enterprsing bold
ness, whose heart was compound of ferocious
hate, Unsuitable cruelty and unappeasable re-
venge."
But the novelists more than the historians
have made his name word Of oathing almost
as much as the name of Benedict Arnold. One
of them writes Of Cherry Valley where through
the wintry dawn young Walter Butler damned
his soul for all eternity while men, women and
children, old and young, died horribly amid the
dripping knives and bayonets of his painted
fends, or fell under the butchering hatchets Of
his Senecas"
Through five historical romances of the Revo-
luton IN the Mohawk valley Of New York writ
ten by this novelist, sinks the sinister figure
Of walter Butler with his awful SMILE" of
walter Butler, a dark, graceful young man,
1.-THE a panther, with cruelty in his almost
perfect features, which were smooth as a wom-
ans and lighted by pair of clear. dark, golden
eyes terrible mad eyes,; OF walter
Butler the murderer Of little children; Of
young Walter Butler in his funereal cloak,
white as a corpse under the black disorder OF
his hair, and staring at nothing like a damned
man"
So after reading for so long that Walter But
Ter was villain Of the deepest dye, 1t is all the
more amazing to pick up book and read that
obviously he was no scoundrel and certainly
no murderer of women and children as all the
books have said. He is the typical, proud, rest
less unhappy, luckless figure of romance, who
throws away his life for a lost cause"-obvi-
ously the stuff of which heroes are made. The
book is War Out of Niagara-Walter Butler
and the Tory Rangers" published recently by
the Columbia University Press for the New York
State Historical association, and the man who has
painted new portrait Of the Infamous Walter
Butler" is Howard Swiggett author Of a care
fully-documented biography, based upon source
material hitherto untouched by the historians.
Why has the name of Walter Butler for so
long been furnished with Ill fame? There
are two reasons, closely associated Even before
the outbreak Of the Revolution there was en-
nifty between some OF the "half-feudal aristoc-
racy' Of the Mohawk valley, notably the John
sons and the Buffers and the Dutch and Ger
man peasantry of that region.
So when the conflict came and Walter Butler
cast his fortunes with the logical cause for
him to espouse. II is small wonder that these
commoners should refuse to credit him with be-
ing actuated by as much sincerity and high prn-
cple as they were in making their choice. His
father, John Butler, was an assistant to the
great Sir William Johnson, the Kings supern-
tendent of Indian affairs In the Northern de-
partment and lieutenant-colonel in Colonial
militia regiment. Brought up in the belief that
the greatest chance for honorable advancement
than that this young aristocrat should choose
the side of His Majesty rather than that of the
rebels?
II must be remembered that the Revolution
was more than conflict between a stubborn
foreign king and his rebellious subjects. 1t
also a civil war in which one group of native
Americans, called Patriots was pitted against
another group of native Americans called Tories
or Loyalists. There is no war more bitter than
prirno ton black for do
10 charge against the other. when families
divided among themselves and friend turns
against friend.
An excellent statement of the case is con-
tanned in the preface to "War Out of Niagara"
written by the well-known British historian and
novelist. John Buchan, who says: 1.-THE defend
ers of an old regime which is destroyed have
usually to wait long before history does them
justice. Their conquerors write the accepted
history books, and the world is always inclined
to believe that the success of thing
IS proof of justice. In a civil war the
loser is in a worse case for the cause he op-
posed has become the cherished loyalty of a
nation and opposition TO it is felt to carry a
mora as well an intellectual stigma As
consequence he win be credited with many In
famies.
what / have written is especially true of a
campaign fought in a wild country where leg
end takes the place of written records His
tory becomes for the victor partly a saga and
partly hagiology. No blemishes are credited
TO the one side and few virtues TO the other
Tales circulate and grow in the telling until
ii is hard to recover even the innocent from
the fog of mythology. This campaign
took place in an intricate country and the bel
ligerents were frontiersmen who left few writ
ten records 1t was rich soil for the growth of
legend"
So the legends of Tory infamy began growing
early among the Patriots and the first histori-
ans who gathered their material among the sur
vivors of the Revolution and who do not seem to
, have been animated by any too-scrupulous re-
gard for accuracy. accepted most Of these leg
ends as facts. Then. too. they seem to have had
the quite-understandable desire "a desire still
in evidence among some Americans Of today,
though 1t is not so UNDERSTANDABLE to Try
to make the Patriots and their cause seem all