Zebulon Butler

Zebulon Butler (1731 – July 28, 1795) was a soldier and politician from Connecticut who served with the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He represented the Wyoming Valley (now in northeast Pennsylvania) in the Connecticut Assembly. At the time, the territory was claimed both by Connecticut (which claimed a wide swath of land to the west) and by Pennsylvania, and was nominally under the former's jurisdiction.

On January 1, 1777, Butler was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Army. He commanded the garrison of Forty Fort in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. His most famous action was the Battle of Wyoming, which resulted in his defeat by British-allied forces; he lost 340 men while attacking a superior force estimated at 574 Loyalists and Iroquois under the command of Loyalist Colonel John Butler (no relation).^[1]

References

Further reading

• Williamson, James; Fossler, Linda (1995). Zebulon Butler: Hero of the Revolutionary Frontier. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-29357-3.