Daniel Adams Butterfield (October 31, 1831 – July 17, 1901) was a New York businessman, a Union general in the American Civil War, and Assistant Treasurer of the United States. After working for American Express, co-founded by his father, Butterfield served in the Civil War, where he was soon promoted brigadier general, and wounded at Gaines' Mill. While recuperating, he either wrote or re-wrote a popular bugle-call for burials, called Taps. He commanded a division at Fredericksburg, and then became General Joseph Hooker's chief of staff for the Army of the Potomac, sharing both the credit for improved morale and responsibility for the licentious behavior that Hooker tolerated in camp. He also became embroiled in Hooker’s political feuds with Generals Ambrose Burnside and George Gordon Meade. When Meade took over the Army from Hooker, he attempted to replace Butterfield, but his chosen candidates preferred to stay in their current assignments, so Butterfield stayed on as chief of staff, to Meade's dissatisfaction. Wounded at Gettysburg, Meade sent Butterfield away to recuperate. He then served in William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, before retiring from front-line service through illness. He later received the Medal of Honor. In Ulysses S. Grant's presidential administration, he was Assistant Treasurer of the United States, abusing that position to manipulate the price of gold, and being forced to resign. He then resumed his business career. Butterfield’s extensive war archives are displayed at Cold Spring, New York. Early life Butterfield was born on October 31, 1831 in Utica, New York. He attended Union Academy and then graduated in 1849, from Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he became a member of the Sigma Phi Society. That same year, his father, John Warren Butterfield, founded the express company of Butterfield, Wasson, and Co., which later became the American Express Company. After graduating, Daniel studied law but as he was too young to sit the New York bar exam, he toured the country instead. Upon his return to Utica, he joined the Utica Citizen’s Corps as a private. He was employed in various businesses in New York and the South, including the American Express Company, which had been co-founded by his father, an owner of the Overland Mail Company, stage-coaches, steamships and telegraph lines. Civil War Butterfield went to New York City as superintendent of the eastern division of his father's company. There, he joined the Seventy-First regiment of New