Military Service
On January 2, 1900 Butt was commissioned as a captain in the United States Volunteers (an all-volunteer group which was not part of the regular United States Army but was under the regular Army's control). He had long admired the military, and no one in his immediate family was serving in the armed forces at the time the Spanish-American War broke out. Although Butt's literary career was taking off, his family's long involvement with the military and his desire to represent his family in the army during the war led him to enlist. Adjutant General of the U.S. Army Henry Clarke Corbin was influential in encouraging him to enlist.
Butt was assigned as an assistant quartermaster (i.e. a supply officer). He was ordered to take the transport ship Sumner through the Suez Canal and proceed to The Philippines. But he was eager to get into the war, and secured a change in orders that sent him from San Francisco, California, aboard the USS Dorothea Dix. Butt's new orders required him to stop in Hawaii with his cargo of 500 mules. But he found the price of feed and stables so high and the quarters for the animals so poor that he disobeyed orders and continued on to the Philippines. Although this risked the lives of his animals (and possible court-martial), none of the mules died en route and Butt was praised for his initiative. Butt remained in the Philippines until 1904, writing numerous treatises on the care of animals in the tropics and on military transportation and logistics. His reports won him significant praise by military officials.
On June 30, 1901 Butt was discharged from the Volunteers and received a commission as a captain in the Regular Army retroactive to February 2, 1901.
Butt's social activities continued while he was in the Philippines. He was secretary of the Army and Navy Club, and had a major role in founding the Military Order of the Carabao (a tongue-in-cheek spoof of military fraternal organizations that is still exists as of 2012).
In 1904, Butt was ordered to return to Washington, D.C., where he was appointed Depot Quartermaster. He was the lowest-ranking officer ever to hold this important position within the Quartermaster Corps. In 1906, when a revolution against Tomás Estrada Palma broke out in Cuba, Butt was hurriedly assigned to lead U.S. Army logistical operations there. On just two days' notice, he established a well-organized supply depot. He was named Depot Quartermaster in Havana.
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