Camp Butler was a Confederate camp of instruction that operated from the spring to the fall of 1861 in what was then Barnwell District. New companies, organized as independent companies or in state regiments, were sent there for training and organization into Confederate regiments before being transferred wherever they were needed. A letter to The Edgefield Advertiser called the camp “the admiration of every visitor .... every thing in every direction is kept in the nicest order.” Companies of the 2nd S.C. Artillery, 7th S.C. Infantry, and 14th S.C. Infantry, as well as the Chesterfield Light Artillery, trained and camped there from April to October 1861 before service in S.C., Va., and N.C.