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Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient
Sergeant Daniel Adams Butterfield
(October 31, 1831 July 17, 1901)
Daniel Adams Butterfield was a New York businessman, a Union general in the American Civil War, and Assistant U.S. Treasurer in New York. He is credited with composing the bugle call Taps and was involved in the Black Friday gold scandal in the Grant administration.
Butterfield was born in Utica, New York. He graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and was employed in various businesses in New York and the South, including the American Express Company, which had been founded by his father, John, an owner of the Overland Mail Company, stage-coaches, steamships, and telegraph lines.
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 George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac for the Peninsula Campaign in the corps of 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 Seven Days of retreating, 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 Chicago, Illinois, 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 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, Joseph Hooker replaced Ambrose Burnside as Army of the Potomac commander and Butterfield, by now a major general, became his chief of staff.
Hooker and Butterfield developed a close personal, and political, relationship. To the disgust of many army generals, their headquarters was 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 Philip Kearny, but extended those to the full army and designed most of the patches himself.
Hooker was replaced after the disastrous Battle of Chancellorsville by George G. Meade, just before the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade distrusted Butterfield, but elected to retain him as chief of staff. This was a mistake. Butterfield actively undermined Meade, in cooperation with Daniel Sickles, another crony of Hooker's. Although the battle was a great Union victory, Sickles and Butterfield testified to the U.S. Congress 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 was wounded by a spent artillery shell fragment at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, and left to convalesce. He 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.
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 robber barons Jay Gould and James Fisk when the government was planning to sell gold, a market that Fisk and Gould wanted to corner. 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, he married Mrs. Julia L. James of New York in a ceremony in London.
Butterfield died in Cold Spring, New York, and was buried with an ornate monument at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, 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. He has also been memorialized in the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaaraa character in the 20th Maine claims that their regimental bugle call was written by Butterfield and is based on his own name, sounding to the rhythm of "Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield".
BUTTERFIELD, DANIEL
Born at Utica, NY. Commanded Pennsylvania Troops. Wrote Taps using last five bars of French Bugle Call Tattoo. The Taps melody was played for the first time by O.W. Norton of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers on July 2, 1862. a Federal officer during the American Civil War. Butterfield won the Medal of Honor at the Battle of Gaines' Mill. Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers. Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862.
CITATION:
26 September 1892. 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.
ORIGIN OF 'TAPS'
During the Civil War, in July 1862 when the Army of the Potomac was in camp, Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield summoned Pvt. Oliver Wilcox Norton, his brigade bugler, to his tent. Butterfield, who disliked the colorless "extinguish lights" call then in use, whistled a new tune and asked the bugler to sound it for him. After repeated trials and changing the time of some notes which were scribbled on the back of an envelope, the call was finally arranged to suit Gen. Butterfield and used for the first time that night. Pvt. Norton, who on several occasions, had sounded numerous new calls composed by his commander, recalled his experience of the origin of "Taps" years later:
"One day in July 1862 when the Army of the Potomac was in camp at Harrison's Landing on the James River, Virginia, resting and recruiting from its losses in the seven days of battle before Richmond, Gen. Butterfield summoned the writer to his tent, and whistling some new tune, asked the bugler to sound it for him. This was done, not quite to his satisfaction at first, but after repeated trials, changing the time of some of the notes, which were scribbled on the back of an envelope, the call was finally arranged to suit the general.
"He then ordered that it should be substituted in his brigade for the regulation "Taps" (extinguish lights) which was printed in the Tactics and used by the whole army. This was done for the first time that night. The next day buglers from nearby brigades came over to the camp of Butterfield's brigade to ask the meaning of this new call. They liked it, and copying the music, returned to their camps, but it was not until some time later, when generals of other commands had heard its melodious notes, that orders were issued, or permission given, to substitute it throughout the Army of the Potomac for the time-honored call which came down from West Point.
In the western armies the regulation call was in use until the autumn of 1863. At that time the XI and XII Corps were detached from the Army of the Potomac and sent under command of Gen. Hooker to reinforce the Union Army at Chattanooga, Tenn. Through its use in these corps it became known in the western armies and was adopted by them. From that time, it became and remains to this day the official call for "Taps." It is printed in the present Tactics and is used throughout the U.S. Army, the National Guard, and all organizations of veteran soldiers.
Gen. Butterfield, in composing this call and directing that it be used for "Taps" in his brigade, could not have foreseen its popularity and the use for another purpose into which it would grow. Today, whenever a man is buried with military honors anywhere in the United States, the ceremony is concluded by firing three volleys of musketry over the grave, and sounding with the trumpet or bugle "Put out the lights. Go to sleep"...There is something singularly beautiful and appropriate in the music of this wonderful call. Its strains are melancholy, yet full of rest and peace. Its echoes linger in the heart long after its tones have ceased to vibrate in the air."
A Story by Kathryn Shenkle
A tune sounded during ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknowns and at military funerals everywhere is known simply as. . . . TAPS During a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, Va., you might hear the echoes of "Taps" being sounded by a bugler from one of the armed forces of the United States.
The 132-year-old bugle call was composed by Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, who commanded the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, during the American Civil War.
Butterfield wrote "Taps" at Harrison's Landing, Va., in July 1862 to replace the customary firing of three rifle volleys at the end of burials during battle. "Taps" also replaced "Tatoo," the French bugle call to signal "lights out." Butterfield's bugler, Oliver W. Norton of Chicago, was the first to sound the new call. Within months, "Taps" was sounded by buglers in both Union and Confederate forces.
"Taps" concludes nearly 15 military funerals conducted with honors each weekday at the Arlington National Cemetery as well as hundreds of others around the country. The tune is also played at many memorial services in Arlington's Memorial Amphitheater and at gravesites throughout the cemetery.
"Taps" is sounded during the 2,500 military wreath ceremonies conducted at the Tomb of the Unknowns every year, including the ones to be held this Memorial Day. The ceremonies are viewed by many groups, including veterans, schools, and foreign officials.
One of the final bugle calls of the day on military installations, "Taps" is played at 10 p.m. as a signal to service members that it is "lights out."
When "Taps" is played, it is customary to salute, if in uniform, or place your hand over your heart if not.
The composer of "Taps" was born Oct. 31, 1831, in Utica, N.Y., and joined the Army in Washington, D.C.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor in the U.S. Volunteers on June 27, 1862. After his brigade lost more than 600 men in the Battle of Gaines Mill, Butterfield took up the colors of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers. Under heavy enemy fire, he encouraged the depleted ranks to regroup and continue the battle.
Butterfield died July 17, 1901, and was buried at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. "Taps" was sounded at his funeral.
Kathryn Shenkle is a historian with Arlington National Cemetery.
Courtesy of Find A Grave
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