Major Frank A. Butts, U.S.V.

Major Frank A. Butts, of the well-known firm of Butts & Phillips, Pension Attorneys, Army and Navy War Veterans' Bureau of Information; No. 1425 New York Avenue, Washington, D.C.

It is of importance and, in fact, a duty, to give wide publicity to the fact that a thoroughly complete and efficient Army and Navy War Veterans' Bureau of Information has been opened in Washington by that true friend of the old soldier, Major Frank A. Butts, so nationally known as the originator, and, until his resignation on August 11, 1889, the chief of the Army and Navy Survivors' Division of the United States Pension Bureau. He is now transacting a general pension agency business, and, with necessarily special qualifications at command to enable him to accurately advise applicants, is a recognized leading authority on everything concerning the Pension Office.

Major Butts is a native of New York City, and comes from old Revolutionary stock on both his father's and mother's side, and when the war of the Rebellion broke out was seventeen years of age. He was one of the first to enlist in " Grant's sharp-shooters" in June, 1861, and was subsequently promoted to a second lieutenancy in the Forty-seventh New York Volunteers, and served throughout the entire war with devotion and gallantry, receiving merited promotion step by step to the rank of major, which position he held when the regiment was mustered out of service August 30, 1865. He took part in all the thirty-three battles in which his regiment was engaged, besides many minor affairs, and took command of the regiment after the wounding of Colonel McDonald at the bloody battle of Olustee, Florida, bringing it off the field and retaining command for several weeks, though only twenty years of age. He was also in command at Chapin's Farm, Darbytown Cross-Roads, and during the operations before Wilmington, North Carolina.

"It has been of more service and benefit to old soldiers than any other three departments of any bureau, and through it the work of the entire Pension Office has been simplified. Through this department thousands of claims have been adjudicated which otherwise would have taken years for want of the necessary legal evidence, and thus the saving to the government has been immense, and of delay and suspense to claimant unmeasurable."

Major Butts has the very highest endorsement from such officers as General Terry, General Horatio G. Wright, General Howard, General Schofield, General and Senator Hawley, and General Pennypacker, on whose staff he served as an aide-de-camp at the storming of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, January 15, 1865, and at other places in Virginia and North Carolina.

Major Butts was one of the early members of the Grand Army of the Republic, helped to found Lafayette Post of New York, and is an active member of Kit Carson Post, No. 2, Washington, D. C.; also of the Military Order, the Loyal Legion, U. S., Washington, D. C., Encampment No. 69, Union Veteran Legion; Phil Sheridan Camp, No. 3, Union Veteran Union, and John A. Logan Camp, No. 2, Sons of Veterans; is also a member of the Masonic Order, Knights of Pythias, Odd-Fellows, and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and is universally respected as a true friend of the veteran; an honorable and a most talented representative of the interests which it is the first duty of the government to meet and fully satisfy, as an act of justice to the poor old veteran or his widow and orphans.

Source: Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War, published by L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893, 419 pgs.

Related Links:

• Civil War Records
• Civil War Microfilm at the National Archives
• Butts Surname

 

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