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Authors: Jules Archer
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One British private left the trench in an attempt to wipe out a Chinese strongpoint at one gate but was hit between the trench and wall. Butler's friend, Henry Leonard, sped out to rescue him but was shot and badly wounded. Clearing the trench at a bound, Butler raced through fire to reach him, but Leonard proved able to scramble back on his own, so Butler lifted the wounded Tommy on his back instead and staggered back to the trench with him.
Just as he eased the British soldier over the parapet, a stunning blow hit him in the chest. Whirling and falling, he lost consciousness briefly.
When he recovered, he heard one Marine say he'd been shot through the heart. He tried to speak but found he had no breath to vocalize. His shirt was torn open, and it was discovered that a bullet had struck the second button of his military blouse, flattening it and driving it into his chest. The button had gouged a hole in the eagle of the Marine Corps emblem he had had tattooed on his chest in the Philippines. The wound was not serious, although for weeks afterward his bruised chest ached painfully, and he spat blood when he coughed.
He was later congratulated by General A. R. R. Dorward, commanding general of the British contingent, who called Butler's rescue of the wounded Tommy the bravest act he had ever seen on the battlefield and recommended him for the Victoria Cross. But the American Government in those days did not permit an American officer to accept foreign decorations of any kind.
By August 14 Peking was in the hands of the allies, and the Boxer Rebellion was crushed. Butler's company of Marines, the longest in China, had suffered the greatest casualties in the fighting-twenty-six killed or wounded. Exhausted, Butler now came down with a bad case of typhoid fever that wasted his already spare frame down to a skeletonized ninety pounds.
3
The ailing captain was shipped to a naval hospital at Cavite, from which he was invalided home to San Francisco. Arriving on December 31, 1900, he was embraced at the port by his worried father and mother, who had rushed to the West Coast to meet him. But during his convalescence he had gained thirty pounds and was almost fully recovered. He returned home with his parents resplendent in his dress blues with two new decorations-a Marine Corps Brevet Medal for "eminent and conspicuous personal bravery" and a China Campaign Medal.
The town of West Chester gave him a hero's reception attended by the Secretary of the Navy and the commandant of the Marine Corps. It was a heady tribute for a boy not yet twenty.
His parents now suggested that since his enlistment period was about up, and he had done more than his duty in serving his country, he might want to return to his Quaker heritage in civilian life. As a boy he had sometimes talked of becoming a civil engineer. Why not go to college and study for it?
He found himself powerless to explain why he felt bound to the blue brotherhood; to make his parents understand his deep pride in the Corps, the warm bonds of solidarity that united Marines, the enjoyable excitement of danger, the honor of being foremost in defense of the nation and its citizens.
Any other way of life seemed pale and drab by comparison.
"I'm reenlisting," he told them.
On October 31, 1902, he was put in command of a company of 101 men and shipped to the island of Culebra twenty miles east of Puerto Rico.
There was trouble in Panama, and Butler's company was part of two battalions being stationed in reserve on Culebra while the fleet, under Admiral George Dewey, conducted maneuvers offshore.
Living on field rations and fighting scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas, the Marines built docks and other naval constructions. In the midst of their perspiring labors Squadron Admiral Joe Coghlan sent 12,5 Navy gunnery experts ashore to challenge Butler and his men to a race in dragging five-inch coastal guns up four-hundred-foot hills. Admiral Dewey sent word that a
One British private left the trench in an attempt to wipe out a Chinese strongpoint at one gate but was hit between the trench and wall. Butler's friend, Henry Leonard, sped out to rescue him but was shot and badly wounded. Clearing the trench at a bound, Butler raced through fire to reach him, but Leonard proved able to scramble back on his own, so Butler lifted the wounded Tommy on his back instead and staggered back to the trench with him.
Just as he eased the British soldier over the parapet, a stunning blow hit him in the chest. Whirling and falling, he lost consciousness briefly.
When he recovered, he heard one Marine say he'd been shot through the heart. He tried to speak but found he had no breath to vocalize. His shirt was torn open, and it was discovered that a bullet had struck the second button of his military blouse, flattening it and driving it into his chest. The button had gouged a hole in the eagle of the Marine Corps emblem he had had tattooed on his chest in the Philippines. The wound was not serious, although for weeks afterward his bruised chest ached painfully, and he spat blood when he coughed.
He was later congratulated by General A. R. R. Dorward, commanding general of the British contingent, who called Butler's rescue of the wounded Tommy the bravest act he had ever seen on the battlefield and recommended him for the Victoria Cross. But the American Government in those days did not permit an American officer to accept foreign decorations of any kind.
By August 14 Peking was in the hands of the allies, and the Boxer Rebellion was crushed. Butler's company of Marines, the longest in China, had suffered the greatest casualties in the fighting-twenty-six killed or wounded. Exhausted, Butler now came down with a bad case of typhoid fever that wasted his already spare frame down to a skeletonized ninety pounds.
3
The ailing captain was shipped to a naval hospital at Cavite, from which he was invalided home to San Francisco. Arriving on December 31, 1900, he was embraced at the port by his worried father and mother, who had rushed to the West Coast to meet him. But during his convalescence he had gained thirty pounds and was almost fully recovered. He returned home with his parents resplendent in his dress blues with two new decorations-a Marine Corps Brevet Medal for "eminent and conspicuous personal bravery" and a China Campaign Medal.
The town of West Chester gave him a hero's reception attended by the Secretary of the Navy and the commandant of the Marine Corps. It was a heady tribute for a boy not yet twenty.
His parents now suggested that since his enlistment period was about up, and he had done more than his duty in serving his country, he might want to return to his Quaker heritage in civilian life. As a boy he had sometimes talked of becoming a civil engineer. Why not go to college and study for it?
He found himself powerless to explain why he felt bound to the blue brotherhood; to make his parents understand his deep pride in the Corps, the warm bonds of solidarity that united Marines, the enjoyable excitement of danger, the honor of being foremost in defense of the nation and its citizens.
Any other way of life seemed pale and drab by comparison.
"I'm reenlisting," he told them.
On October 31, 1902, he was put in command of a company of 101 men and shipped to the island of Culebra twenty miles east of Puerto Rico.
There was trouble in Panama, and Butler's company was part of two battalions being stationed in reserve on Culebra while the fleet, under Admiral George Dewey, conducted maneuvers offshore.
Living on field rations and fighting scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas, the Marines built docks and other naval constructions. In the midst of their perspiring labors Squadron Admiral Joe Coghlan sent 12,5 Navy gunnery experts ashore to challenge Butler and his men to a race in dragging five-inch coastal guns up four-hundred-foot hills. Admiral Dewey sent word that a
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