Jackson's Mistake: The Real and Never Before Told Story of Anthony Butler of South Carolina

By John Cook

anyone with an interest in american history will want to read this quintissentially american story. it's the story of anthony butler, a larger-than-life 19th century american character... and perhaps president andrew jackson’s biggest mistake. named by jackson as attaché to mexico, butler was one of america’s worst diplomatic appointments ever. he insulted the mexican men and violated mexican women. he completely failed in his mission, forever changing the course of mexican-american relations. in america he was elected to the state legislatures in three states, and he was also a legislator in the republic of texas. He had two, and possibly three, wives at the same time. as he moved from south carolina to tennessee to kentucky to mississippi to mexico city and then to texas, he left a trail of enemies well-known in america’s history, and a trail of bad debts as well. but at the end, he died a hero’s death. his full story has never before been told...now it has been.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Cook
• Release date: Nov 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301953561

John Cook

John Cook’s career in healthcare has spanned over 35 years in revenue cycle management, client relations, writing, and speaking. He continues to reach healthcare workers through presenting “Taking the Cuss Out of Customer Service,” teaching the essentials of an exceptional patient experience. A graduate of Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business, he served 22 years as Director of Revenue Cycle at Watauga Medical Center (Appalachian Regional Healthcare System) in Boone. He currently works as Chief Client Officer for Professional Recovery Consultants, Inc. John remains active in his community and the healthcare arena. He may be reached at jcook[at]prorecoveryinc.com.

Book preview

Chapter I - Prologue…

It was well past midnight on Wednesday morning, April 18th, 1849, when the steamboat General Pike, enroute from Cincinnati to New Orleans, made its way around the bends on the Mississippi and pulled up to the wharf. Most of the passengers, including the lone lady in the ladies cabin, were sleeping soundly. A few folks awoke, or perhaps hadn’t retired, and stumbled onto the deck to find where they were, and why the stop in this remote place. The wharf, it turned out, belonged to the Morgan’s sugar plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana…near the town of Morganza. They were stopping to unload an engine and some other machinery for the sugar mill.

Most of the curious passengers who had come out to see what was going on went back to bed; it was, after all, chilly and damp and the middle of the night. A few stayed on deck to watch. By now it was about four in the morning…not yet light. A small crew from the plantation came to help, hooked up the crane and began, carefully, hoisting the engine from the boat to the wharf. Suddenly a dreaded cry went out. FIRE! Flames were shooting from the aft of the boat …the ladies cabin! FIRE!

Now the passengers were sleepy no longer; they were wide awake and on the move. FIRE! As the flames spread quickly, a motley assortment of passengers and crew in various states of undress rushed to the deck and down the gangplank and onto the wharf and safety. The New Orleans Daily Picayune would report the next day that some escaped completely naked. In just a few minutes the whole boat was enveloped in flames, and would eventually be completely destroyed.

One elderly passenger, however, didn’t retreat from the flames. He bravely rushed headlong into the burning ladies cabin to attempt to rescue the sole lady passenger…the lady with whom he was traveling. He would not be seen again, and was the only one to perish in the fire. The lady had been rescued by another. His body was never recovered. That passenger was Colonel Anthony Butler of South Carolina, late of Independence, Texas.

New Orleans Daily Picayune

April 19, 1849

New Orleans Daily Picayune

Evening Edition April 19, 1849

Chapter II - Preface…

When Mexico forced the recall of the first United States Minister to that country, Joel Poinsett, in 1829, President Andrew Jackson replaced him with a relative unknown (at least in public circles) named Anthony Butler. Appointed Chargé d'Affaires, Butler served in the post for six critical years (and continued stirring up trouble in Mexico City for almost another year), critical because all during this time Jackson was fervently trying to acquire Texas from Mexico. By all accounts, Butler was one of the worst diplomatic appointments ever made by any American President. And there are many accounts. Writer after writer, historian after historian, have excoriated Butler in scathing terms. Scandalous, unprincipled, corrupt, inept, are just a few of the terms used.

In the end result, Butler’s work, primarily because of what he didn’t achieve, was important. Had he carried out his work with the diplomacy and skill that it required, his mission to gain Texas for the U. S. might have succeeded. And had he been successful, it is reasonable to conclude that Texas might well have joined the union 10 or 15 years sooner than it did. It is reasonable to assume that there would have been no Texas Revolution; no Alamo, no Goliad, no San Jacinto. And it is reasonable to assume there would not have been a Mexican War. The course of history would have been appreciably altered.

Our story will visit this seamy chapter in Butler’s life; albeit perversely, this was the peak of his career. And we will investigate other questions. Who was Anthony Butler, and what was the story of the 55 years of his life prior to his appointment to Mexico? To what extent was President Jackson culpable for appointing a man so wrong for the job, and to what extent was Jackson responsible for Butler’s seamy conduct after he got the job? What led to Butler being considered for the Mexico post? What happened to Butler after he returned from Mexico?

None of those who have written about Butler in Mexico, nor any other historians, have fully chronicled this truly unique tale, and many who delved into his background at all got key facts wrong, and there were key facts uncovered by no other researchers. Butler’s whole story is important enough and unusual enough and colorful enough that it deserves to be told. It is the story of a man who served in the legislatures of three states, and the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Who ran for several higher elective offices without success, and no doubt considered himself as a potential U.S. President. One who always assumed himself to be a major player on the national stage, inspiring great respect by some, and bitter enmity by others. Although Butler was as a relative unknown when Jackson appointed him, it is challenging to find any American prominent in government between 1810 and 1850 who didn’t know Butler and have a strong opinion about him. Sam Houston (whose personal odyssey is perhaps even stranger than Butler’s), Stephen Austin and John Quincy Adams, along with many others including relatives and former friends, were numbered among his detractors and unlucky creditors, but respected statesman like John J. Crittenden and Henry Clay of Kentucky (at least for a while), and Thomas Sumter of South Carolina, were apparently friends and supporters. Martin Van Buren, Stephen K. Polk, Lewis Cass, and of course Jackson, were others who knew him and had strong opinions about him…few favorable, and none neutral.

In some unexplained fashion, Butler abandoned his first wife. While still married to her he took a wife (or mistress) in Mexico. He subsequently abandoned this woman and, it appears, their children. In 1840, still married to his first wife, who had long since repaired to her family in South Carolina, he married again in Texas. At his death it seems he was living apart from the Texas wife. All his life he lived well beyond his means, seldom paid his debts, and left behind at least two bankruptcies and a stunning string of bad debts and court appearances across the country (and apparently Mexico as well). In Kentucky there is a mysterious story of the two widows(!) of a vicious serial killer living on Butler properties, and even more mysterious, the report by a respected historian that the comely daughter of one of these widows, then in her mid-twenties, traveled with Butler to Mississippi and then on to Texas. In his penultimate chapter, he was chased down by Boston and New York police after jumping bail. Then, finally, a few months later, while he was still married to two or possibly three wives, Anthony Butler died a hero’s death attempting to rescue the unknown lady with whom he was traveling.

A clear understanding of one particular issue helps to better comprehend what is written here. In the United States of the early twenty-first century, Mexico is perceived to be a modest player on the world stage, an unthreatening good neighbor. But in the first half of the nineteenth century, with Europe weeks away, and Asia even more distant, Mexico was perceived in very different terms. Mexico was important, and a threat. Our borders were still very much a source of conflict. There was real concern about the possibility of collusion between Mexico and England. It is hard to pick up a local newspaper from a U.S. city of almost any size at that time and not read at least one, and quite likely several, stories of one sort or the other about and/or from, Mexico. The story told here was radically more important to Americans and Mexicans of 1830 than it would be today. And the work of our diplomats to Mexico was far more critical than it is today.

Greatness is an arbitrary term, and each one construes it to mean what suits his own taste, or peculiar opinions – my own is that true greatness, or eminence call it which you please – consists in the power of increasing by precept or example the virtue or happiness of mankind.

An undated single page containing a variety of Butler’s musings on different subjects is found among the Butler Papers at the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Collection in Austin. Greatness is one of these subjects; others, one in Butler’s own writing, will follow.

Chapter III - Anthony Butler: Diplomat to Mexico

It adds no particular value to revisit in any detail the story of Anthony Butler’s six year turn on the international stage; this chapter in Butler’s life has been thoroughly researched and told and retold many times over. But forthwith is a sampling of the conclusions historians have reached about Butler:

Historian Justin H. Smith commented that Butler's only qualifications for the post were an acquaintance with Texas and a strong desire to see the United States obtain it. He had been through bankruptcy more than once, spoke no Spanish, was ignorant of the forms of diplomacy, and was personally a bully and a swashbuckler. Further, Smith maintained, Butler was ignorant at first of the Spanish language and even the forms of diplomacy, shamefully careless about legation affairs, wholly unprincipled in his methods, and openly scandalous in his conduct...In brief, a national disgrace. ¹

Butler was severely at odds with the United States Consul in Mexico City, James Wilcocks, due not only to Butler’s incompetence, but his immorality as well. He attempted flagrantly to seduce a young daughter of a respectable Mexican through affectations and promises of marriage, wrote James E. Cypher in 1997. Other personal vices included gambling, debt incursion and usurious loaning, he writes, and quotes Wilcocks describing Butler as, …totally unfit to represent our nation…being as rough and unpolished a brute… His avarice is insatiable and to gratify it, he would sacrifice the best friend he has on Earth. ²

The most colorful and scathing account of Butler’s time in Mexico was penned by historian Bernard Mayo. It would appear that Mayo was much opposed to the culture of manifest destiny, looked for the most striking example of everything that was wrong with manifest destiny, and came up with Anthony Butler. When Butler arrived in Mexico City with instructions to spend up to five million dollars, if necessary, to buy Texas, he was surprised when a leading Mexico City newspaper immediately reported these facts. There was, in fact, no mystery, wrote Mayo, "The diplomat had simply boasted too loudly in Texas of what he intended to