Daniel Butterfield - Postbellum Life

Postbellum Life

After the war, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Butterfield Assistant Treasurer of the United States, based on a recommendation by Abel Corbin, Grant's brother-in-law. Butterfield agreed to tell Corbin and speculators Jay Gould and James Fisk when the government was planning to sell gold, a market that Fisk and Gould wanted to corner. Butterfield accepted a $10,000 payment from Gould, which Gould said was "to cover expenses". Butterfield later testified to Congress that it was an unsecured real estate loan. If Butterfield tipped them off, Fisk and Gould would sell their gold before the price dropped. The scheme was uncovered by Grant, who sold $4,000,000 of government gold without telling Butterfield. This resulted in the panic of collapsing gold prices known as Black Friday, on September 24, 1869.

On September 21, 1886, Butterfield married Mrs. Julia L. James of New York in a ceremony in London. On July 17, 1901, Butterfield died in Cold Spring, New York; he was buried with an ornate monument in West Point Cemetery at the United States Military Academy, although he had not attended that institution. Taps was sounded at his funeral. He was the author of the 1862 Army field manual, Camp and Outpost Duty for Infantry.