Thomas Harvey Butler Sr. (October 13, 1819 – May 20, 1889) was an American politician, soldier, attorney, and engineer. Listed as T.H. Butler in the official Tennessee Blue Book, Thomas Harvey Butler served as the fifteenth Secretary of State for the State of Tennessee from 1870 to 1873 under Governors Dewitt Clinton Senter and John Calvin Brown. From 1875 to 1876 Butler served as the State Senator for the Ninth District in the Tennessee Senate, a member of the 39th General Assembly or Legislature, representing the Counties of Macon, Clay, Smith, Trousdale, Sumner, and Jackson. T.H. Butler also raised a future statesman, his son Mounce Gore Butler, a United States Congressman who represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1905 to 1907. In 1910 Secretary Butler was posthumously honored by a later Secretary of State, Hallum Goodloe, by hanging Butler's portrait on the walls of Tennessee's State Capitol. Soldier T.H. Butler enlisted in the 25th Tennessee Infantry of the Confederate States Army on August 10, 1861 at age 35 in Livingston, Tennessee. Butler was appointed by Gov. Isham Harris to the Commissary Office as a Captain of the 25th Tennessee under Colonel Sidney S. Stanton on September 27, 1861 and was honorably discharged by Gen. George G. Dibrell on March 7, 1862. In his post-military career Captain Butler was known as Colonel Butler, a title of respect given to older Southern gentlemen to honor them for exemplary community leadership or government statesmanship. Attorney T.H. Butler practiced law as an attorney based in Gainesboro, Tennessee, as did his son Bowen Butler who also practiced law in Nashville, Tennessee, both of whom are mentioned in Bowen's prestigious biography entry in the book Tennessee, the Volunteer State 1769-1923 which describes T.H. Butler as "an able attorney and one of the foremost men in public affairs of Tennessee. For sixteen years he was retained in the office of Circuit Court Clerk of Jackson County, after which he was made County Clerk, ... later he was appointed United States commissioner." T.H. Butler's impressive service as U.S. Commissioner for the Federal Judiciary spanned approximately a decade from 1877 to 1887. A man of many titles, Commissioner Butler also may have been known as Judge Butler when he served as a Justice of the Peace. Two other sons and a son-in-law of T.H. Butler were prominent lawyers as well, W. Bailey Butler, General Mounce Gore