2-913-610 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Captain Butler, the Defender of Silistria, 1854. British officer who was killed at the Siege of Silistria, during the Crimean War. He died '...aged twenty-seven, of a wound received while bravely and successfully defending Silistria against the Russians...At the age of sixteen he was appointed to the 90th Light Infantry, with which he served against the Kaffirs in 1846 and 1847. In the latter year he obtained a Lieutenancy in the Ceylon Rifles, and remained in that colony six years. There he rendered himself useful in quelling the rebellion...Poor Butler is the first English soldier who has fallen in this [Crimean] war...At the time he received the wound none of us thought it was anything more than a mere flesh wound, particularly as the ball had traversed part of the parapet before striking him. He lived eight days after this, and I may say his death was universally regretted'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.