Archibald Butt

Archibald Butt
Lieutenant Archibald Butt in 1909.
Born	Archibald Willingham DeGraffenreid Clarendon Butt (1865-09-26)September 26, 1865 Augusta, Georgia, U.S
Died	April 15, 1912(1912-04-15) (aged 46) RMS Titanic, Atlantic Ocean
Occupation	Journalist, soldier, presidential aide

Archibald Willingham DeGraffenreid Clarendon Butt (September 26, 1865 – April 15, 1912) was an American journalist and United States Army officer. After a short career as a newspaper reporter, he served two years as the First Secretary of the American embassy in Mexico. He was commissioned in the United States Volunteers in 1898 and served in the Quartermaster Corps during the Spanish–American War. He gained notice for his work in logistics and animal husbandry, and received a commission in the regular United States Army in 1901. After brief postings in Washington, D.C., and Cuba, he was appointed military aide to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. He died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Archibald Butt was born in September 1865 in Augusta, Georgia, to Joshua Willingham Butt and Pamela Robertson Butt (née Boggs). His grandfather, Archibald Butt, served in the American Revolutionary War. His great-grandfather, Josiah Butt, was a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army during the same conflict. He was the nephew of General William R. Boggs of the Confederate States Army (CSA). He had two older brothers (Edward and Lewis), a younger brother (John), and a sister (Clara), and the family was poor. Butt attended various local schools while growing up, including Summerville Academy. Butt's father died when he was 14 years old, and Butt went to work to support his mother, sister, and younger brother. Pamela Butt wished for her son to enter the clergy.

With the financial help of the Reverend Edwin G. Weed (who later became the Episcopal Bishop of Florida), Butt attended the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. His mother worked as a librarian at the university, where she lived rent-free in an apartment in the library. While in college, he became interested in journalism and eventually was named editor of the college newspaper. Butt became acquainted with John Breckinridge Castleman, a former CSA major and guerrilla fighter during the American Civil War and who was, by 1883, Adjutant General of the Kentucky Militia. He joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and graduated in 1888.