Career
He was honored with the award on 4 May 1891. Butterfield was born on 11 May 1842 in Vermont and was pursuing law at the Middlebury College before the outbreak of the war. He enlisted into the 6th Vermont Infantry on 4 October 1861 at Middlebury.
He was later promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel on command of his regiment on 21 October 1864.
Following the war he was a merchant operating on the Saxtons River and subsequently returned to school to complete his law qualifications. In 1880 and 1881 he was in charge of the tenth Vermont census, he led investigations into alleged census fraud in South Carolina and also assisted with the tenth Washington census.
He then transferred to the Bureau of Pensions in 1882 and became chief of the special examination division in 1890. He resigned from public office in 1888 to pursue private business.
