Daniel Butterfield - Civil War

Civil War

Only days after Fort Sumter, despite having little military background beyond part-time militia activities, he joined the Army as a first sergeant in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1861. Within two weeks he obtained a commission as a colonel in the 12th New York Militia, which became the 12th New York Infantry. By July he commanded a brigade and by September he was a brigadier general.

Butterfield joined Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac for the Peninsula Campaign in the V Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter. In the Seven Days Battles, at Gaines' Mill on June 27, 1862, he was wounded, but also demonstrated bravery that eventually was recognized (in 1892) with the Medal of Honor. The medal citation read: "Seized the colors of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers at a critical moment and, under a galling fire of the enemy, encouraged the depleted ranks to renewed exertion."

While the Union Army recuperated at Harrison's Landing, Virginia, from its grueling withdrawal during the Seven Days, Butterfield experimented with bugle calls and is credited with the composition of "Taps", probably the most famous bugle call ever written. He wrote "Taps" to replace the customary firing of three rifle volleys at the end of burials during battle. "Taps" also replaced Tattoo, the French bugle call to signal "lights out". Butterfield's bugler, Oliver W. Norton of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers was the first to sound the new call. Within months, "Taps" was sounded by buglers in both the Union and Confederate armies. (This account has been disputed by some military and musical historians, who maintain that Butterfield merely revised an earlier call known as the Scott Tattoo and did not compose an original work. See External links section.)

Butterfield continued in brigade command at the Second Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Antietam, became division commander, and then V Corps commander for the Battle of Fredericksburg. His corps was one of those assaulting through the city and up against murderous fire from Marye's Heights. After the debacles of Fredericksburg and the Mud March, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker replaced Ambrose Burnside as Army of the Potomac commander and Butterfield became his chief of staff in January 1863. He was promoted to major general in March 1863 with a date of rank of November 29, 1862.

Hooker and Butterfield developed a close personal, and political, relationship. To the disgust of many army generals, their headquarters were frequented by women and liquor, being described as a combination of a "bar and brothel". Political infighting became rampant in the high command and Butterfield was widely disliked by most of his colleagues. However, the two officers managed to turn around the poor morale of the army and greatly improved food, shelter, and medical support in the spring of 1863. During this period, Butterfield introduced another custom that remains in the Army today: the use of distinctive hat or shoulder patches to denote the unit a soldier belongs to, in this case the corps. He was inspired by the division patches used earlier by Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny, but extended those to the full army and designed most of the patches himself.

Hooker was replaced after the Battle of Chancellorsville by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, just before the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade distrusted Butterfield, but elected to retain him as chief of staff. Butterfield was wounded by a spent artillery shell fragment at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, and left to convalesce. Meade removed him as chief of staff on July 14, 1863.

After Gettysburg, Butterfield actively undermined Meade, in cooperation with Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles, another crony of Hooker's. Although the battle was a great Union victory, Sickles and Butterfield testified to the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War that Meade vacillated and planned as early as July 1 to retreat from Gettysburg, damaging his reputation. Butterfield's chief evidence for this assertion was the Pipe Creek Circular that Meade had his staff prepare before it became apparent that there would be a battle at Gettysburg.

Butterfield returned to duty that fall as chief of staff once again for Hooker, now commanding two corps in the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga, Tennessee. When these two depleted corps (the XI and XII Corps) were combined to form the XX Corps, Butterfield was given the 3rd Division, which he led through the first half of Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. Illness prevented his completion of the war in the field, and he assumed quiet duties at Vicksburg, Mississippi, followed by recruiting and the command of harbor forces in New York.