EMERY BUTTLES – 93rd and 175th INFANTRYYET ANOTHER CLERICAL MIXUP – When he enlisted in the 93rd Infantry in Glens Falls on February 4, 1862, Emery Buttles expected to serve for three years. He was born on September 3, 1832 in Luzerne, NY, the son of Ora Buttles (Buttolph) and Eliza Tinney. When the regiment left the state in early March he left behind his wife, Margaret, four children and his widowed father.Four months later, just before the start of the Seven Days’ Battles near Richmond, Emery was discharged for disability at Fortress Monroe. It’s not known if he made the 75-mile march from Yorktown or dropped out along the way.Emery enlisted again, this time in Plattsburgh in the 175th Infantry on September 15, 1864. When he got to the Draft Depot on Hart Island off the Bronx, a clerk listed him as a private in the 169th Infantry to serve for one year under the name Emory Butler. On his Muster Roll Abstract, for the 169th, his is listed as being absent at the Draft Depot and at the muster-out of his company. However, his Muster Roll Abstract for the 175th shows he mustered out with his detachment at Savannah, GA, about a year after his enlistment.While Emery was with the 175th Infantry, he was a replacement for the men lost to illness on the Red River Campaign. He and the other new recruits went straight to the Shenandoah Valley to fight General Jubal Early under General Philip Sheridan. After subduing the Confederates in the Valley, the 175th were ordered to North Carolina and were at the Second Surrender where General Sherman accepted the surrender of General Johnston at the Bennett House near Raleigh.Emery returned to the farm in September 1865, and in June 1866, his father died. He was buried in the Leavens Cemetery in Lake Luzerne with his wife. In 1873, his wife, Margaret died. He later remarried.In later life Emery and his wife moved to Glens Falls. He died in 1899 and his second wife, Elizabeth claimed her Widow’s Pension. The Civil War Pension Index claims only his service in the 93rd and 175th Infantries. We wonder if Emery even knew he had been listed in the 169th Volunteers?
