Edward Gerald Butler
Irish soldier
Sir Edward Gerald Butler (24 April 1770 – 30 November 1824) was an Irish soldier.
Biography
He was a son of Garret (or Gerald) Butler of Cashel, County Tipperary, and Anne Butler, of Hemmingstown.
Early in his military career, he was one of the heroes of a battle to save the Austrian emperor, Francis II. Butler entered the army by purchasing a cornetcy in the 14th light dragoons on 30 September 1788, gazetted August 1789. He was promoted Lieutenant dated 13 October 1791, gazetted Dec 1791. He exchanged to the 24th Regiment of Foot, gazetted August 1792. In 1793, he became Captain of an Independent Company, gazetted Sept 1793. Butler then purchased a cornetcy in 15th Regiment of Dragoons, gazetted March 1794. He was sent to take part in the Flanders Campaign, which was part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
On 24 April 1794, during the Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies, he was one of the officers of the two companies escorting the Emperor Francis II (the other was a company of Black Hussars) which saved Emperor Francis II from being taken prisoner by a numerically superior French force. They charged, and the French fled, leaving three guns behind them.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward Gerald Butler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.